Undone
by The Dancing Bee
Summary: Charlotte stared at him, trying to imagine the two boys running through Brooklyn on the eve of a world war. Throwing baseballs in the shimmering summer heat while newspapers floated in the dirty streets. Even if Steve was still Steve, she could only catch passing glimpses of the other slick-haired, fast-talking, tough-love New Yorker. James Barnes was lost to a bygone era.
1. Return to Wakanda

**A/N: **

**Confession: I've always loved Bucky. His tragic, angsty, dark and broody character just speaks directly to my ovaries. It was only a matter of time before it culminated in a fic. So here it is. **

* * *

"No. There's no way, Shuri. You're out of your brilliant mind."

Shuri laughed at her friend's words. They were sitting on a grassy hilltop overlooking the city of Wakanda. Parched grass plains sprawled behind them while great flocks of white birds flirted with the blue horizon. The lush river valley and its green peaks that enclosed the metropolis seemed to belong to another planet completely. The breeze that reached them from across the vast lake was hot and humid, but the African sun was a welcome warmth on Charlotte's pale skin.

"I can't believe," Charlotte said around a mouthful of apple, "that you would bring me all the way out here under false pretenses. I thought we were better friends than that."

Shuri giggled and rolled her eyes. "Oh don't be so dramatic, Charlotte. I had you come out here because I've missed you." Her friend raised a long, brown eyebrow at her. "Ok, ok, and maybe I thought you could help me with a project."

"Shuri, restoring a person's control over their own mind is not a simple biotechnical project. I wouldn't even know where or how to begin!"

"I'd help you, of course." Shuri continued to smile at her friend, who was still shaking her head with a hint of a grin. It was true. They hadn't seen each other in a few years and while Shuri was continuously busy with developing new technologies for her brother, she missed their long treks through the African savannah, swimming in the waterfall pools, and late-night banter under starry skies that glittered like diamonds.

"Look, it's a relatively simple theory," Shuri tried to explain again, half-laughing as Charlotte threw herself back and laid on the ground, exasperated. "The neuron transmitters of the brain respond to electrical fields through a series of feedback loops. Electromagnetic manipulation –"

"What if I don't want to do it?"

Charlotte closed her eyes so she couldn't see her friend purse her lips and scold her with those coffee-colored eyes. She took a deep breath and felt the earth below her rotate. It was breathing back. She had never been able to find words to describe the currents of breath that surrounded and penetrated the earth. Many people paid her to try. Even more paid for demonstrations. It isn't show and tell, she so often wanted to tell them. It was listening and feeling.

"Then Steve Rogers is going to be very disappointed that we couldn't help his best friend."

Charlotte shot up, pieces of straw and stale grass stuck in her long auburn hair. Her dark eyes were massive against her fair skin.

Shuri laughed and plucked a few of the grasses from her friend's hair. "What? You wouldn't want to disappoint Captain America, would you?"

"I wouldn't want to turn Captain America's best friend into a fried egg, either. You're asking me to perform experimental electromagnetic therapy on him?! Shouldn't we start with rats or something?"

"I would, but I don't know of any rats that currently have their minds brainwashed by Hydra agents from the 1940's."

Charlotte rolled her eyes. "Whatever, Shuri. I'm sure you could hypnotize a few mice. You have the technology. Besides, why do you even need me to do it? You can calibrate electric-shock therapy –"

"That's what they did to him," Shuri cut her off. "That's what I'm trying to undo to him."

Charlotte perched her elbows on her knees and looked back out over the city of Wakanda, squinting against the reflections that were gleaming off of the city's high-rises. In the far distance, she could make out the black panther's snarling façade leaping from the rockface.

"Look. I know why you're nervous," Shuri tried again. "But I'm not going to let you just blindly try this alone. I've developed an algorithm that should help to desensitize his word trigger programming and have a pretty good idea of how to go about it. I just want you to tell me what you perceive. I promise I won't let you turn Bucky into a vegetable."

Charlotte turned her gaze back towards Shuri, frowning. "Bucky?"

"His name is James Barnes, but he prefers to go by Bucky. You probably know him." Charlotte raised a skeptical eyebrow and waited for her to elaborate. Shuri rubbed her hands together slowly, as if trying to conjure the words in her hands. "Remember the U.N. bombing?"

Charlotte blinked. "Are you serious? The assassin? What did they call him…the white soldier or something?"

"Winter soldier. And he didn't actually bomb the U.N., he was framed because of the brainwashing mind-control trick. It's complicated, but he's not a villain."

The wind tossed long ribbons of hair around Charlotte's face as she absentmindedly pulled grass from the ground. "If your brother allows him to be here, then it must be true."

Shuri threw up her hands. "Oh sure, believe my brother, but not me? Your best friend?"

Charlotte smiled and after a deep breath, she stood and stretched her arms above her head. The wind breathed through her cotton t-shirt, baring her midriff long enough for Shuri to catch a glimpse of the glossy pink scar that branched out over her skin.

A small chirp on her wrist suddenly interrupted her thoughts. Holding her arm to face level, she pressed a small button on her communicator and smiled at T'Challa.

"Speak of the devil."

"Shuri. Whatever your reason for missing the outreach banquet in Oakland, I hope it is a good one."

Shuri looked around for a moment, as if the answer was hanging onto some shriveled blade of grass. "I…forgot?"

"You never forget anything," her brother returned sternly. "I'm disappointed that you did not attend. You were an expected guest of honor."

"Well," she exaggerated her words with a dramatic eye roll, "as head of the technology and information exchange, I am a very busy person with many obligations. You of all people should know this."

"I know that you must have found a project that is more interesting to you. What is it?"

Charlotte snorted and walked over to where Shuri was still sitting. From behind Shuri, she bent down and waved into the transmitter. "Hello T'Challa."

T'Challa nodded, his suspicions clearly confirmed. "Hello Charlotte. It has been a while."  
"Yes, it has been. I know you're a busy king, but is it too much to hope that I get to see you this time?"

"Not at all. In fact, I can see you now."

Shuri stood and turned around as Charlotte shielded her eyes and looked to the sky. A metallic whir filled the air and dust began to swirl ahead of the approaching aircraft. Within seconds, the small dark bird on the horizon had grown angled wings and a sleek profile that glinted in the sunlight. Charlotte tried to keep her mouth shut against the tornadic dust, but as the talon fighter ripped through the air just several hundred feet above their heads, she couldn't help but smile. She blinked once and the jet was gone, diving gracefully into the valley below as it steered a course for the panther in the side of the mountain.

"Good to know your brother still has a sense of humor, even as king," Charlotte said a little too loudly. Her ears were still ringing from the turbines.

"It's not humor," Shuri coughed, looking vaguely more irritated than her friend. "He's just a poor pilot."

Charlotte chuckled and looked back out at the city. The fighter had vanished, and the setting sun was beginning to bathe the spires and windows in a fiery red-orange glow. Shadows crept down the crevices of the hillsides and as sunlight showered through the fine mists of the dozen or so waterfalls scattered throughout the valley, each one ignited in a cascading rainbow of color.

"I forget how beautiful it is here," Charlotte murmured.  
"So stay." Shuri said simply, standing beside her friend and giving her a wily grin. "We miss having you here."

Silence.

Charlotte could feel Shuri's pulse quickening with each passing moment, her currents bending and warping around her. Even Charlotte suppressed her breathing at one point, waiting for the bubble to burst.

"…and you can help me with Bucky." Charlotte hung her head, but the grin on her face told Shuri she had won. "Yes! Yes, yes, yes!"

"Under one condition," Charlotte cut off her friend's celebrations with a darker tone. The princess eyed her friend carefully. Her hair hung in thick waves around her face, though Shuri knew not all of it was her own. With eyes like dark forest pools, it was difficult to tell that one of her pupils was permanently dilated. And always that smooth pink scar, branching out delicately behind her ear and snaking down the back of her neck.

"Not without his consent." Shuri blinked. "I want to know that he's ok with this."

The princess smiled reassuringly. "Of course, but I promise you. He wants this."

Satisfied, Shuri began to trek down the hill while Charlotte hesitated, an iron fist twisting at her gut. She inhaled deeply as the earth breathed a hot gust of wind into her lungs, then began to follow in her friend's footsteps.

"It better not be because you brainwashed him."

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**A/N: Woo, feeling a little rusty with the whole writing thing. It's only been about 8 years since I've done a fic. Please feel free to provide any thoughts/comments/feedback you may have! Cheers! **


	2. Longing

"Do you trust me?"

He didn't answer.

"Bucky, look at me." His eyes finally left the wall he had been staring at and met her gaze. "Do you trust me?"

His brows furrowed and he leaned away from her, as if afraid that she might try to reach out and touch him. She had seen those eyes before. Research videos in a dark room filled with machines and scientists.

Charlotte stayed rooted to the spot, making a conscious effort to keep absolutely still. Even without his mechanical arm, she was very aware that a flight or fight response from the former assassin could spell a quick end for her. Cold rivulets of sweat tickled down her back.

"I don't trust myself," he said, an audible note of fear shaking his voice.

She ignored him. "Do you trust me? Because I'm not doing this if you don't."

She watched his chest rise and fall, counting his breaths before he answered. One, two, three…

"There has to be another way," he pleaded.

Charlotte's heart looped in her chest and she swallowed hard. "I wish there was, Bucky. I know you're scared. I promise you won't hurt me. Or anyone else."

He gave her a pained look. "You can't promise that."

They were alone in the empty room together. Three of the four walls were made of solid vibranium-infused compounds, while the fourth was paneled with tinted shatterproof glass, allowing a view of the Wakandan river valley below. The sun was beginning to set and giant brushstrokes of orange and pink clouds splashed across the sky.

Charlotte watched the sunlight play on Bucky's face as he walked over to the windows, his bare feet padding against the hard floor. He wore black cargo pants and a fitted gray t-shirt, with the sleeves tucked where his left arm should be. In her mind she could sense the erratic currents that charged within him, pulling, racing, snapping, breaking. His dark hair shielded his eyes from her, but she knew that he wasn't really seeing the room. None of him was really in the room.

"What happened in the medical wing was our fault, not yours," Charlotte said. "You didn't hurt anyone. You're still not hurting anyone." He briefly looked up at her from beneath hooded brows but said nothing. "You're not a prisoner here. You're not an experiment. And I'm not going to treat you like either. We don't have to do this. It's your choice."

"Why?" He turned to face her and a few thick strands of dark hair fell around his face. "Why not just perform the treatment and get it over with? Why is it so important to you that I make this choice?"

"It…" Charlotte hesitated, stung by the note of panic in his voice. The question caught her off guard and she struggled to find words under his gaze. She looked down at her own bare feet before raising her eyes to his again. They were a cloudy steel gray today. "Because," she said slowly, "this is probably going to be painful. In many ways. And I need to know that you choose this. That I'm not just another captor inflicting torture."

Bucky dropped his gaze, suddenly ashamed that he had questioned her so harshly. Unsure of what to say, he quietly murmured, "Yeah."

Silence settled between them. She searched his fallen face, realizing with a sinking heart that perhaps enough damage had been done for one day. Slowly, steadily, she crossed the room towards him, watching him carefully for any sign of retreat. Bucky allowed her to approach, though his flexing jaw muscles as he clenched were not unnoticed by her.

When she was an arm's length away, she stopped. She took in his broad frame, nearly twice as big as hers, and tried to imagine the ghost of that mechanical arm that once glimmered at his side. The fist of Hydra. The Winter Soldier. She tried to visualize the robotic, heartless assassin, but struggled to see past the broken man before her.

"Do you trust me?"

Bucky looked down at her. Her chestnut hair was braided over her shoulder, though a few loose waves clung to her heart-shaped face. Long, slender eyebrows gracefully framed her bottomless, unblinking eyes. His gaze roamed past her pastel lips down to the side of her neck, where a vein of scar tissue bended away from her ear.

"Yes," he whispered. "I trust you."

Her breath broke free between parted lips. She searched his face a moment longer, and when he said nothing more, gave a slight nod and slowly retreated backwards. Bucky watched her, never breaking eye contact, as a burning dread began slowly creeping up the back of his neck. His right hand clenched into a fist.

When she was in the middle of the room, Charlotte stopped and tried to swallow what felt like her entire heart in her throat. She faltered, unable to make any sound. What if it didn't work? What if it was more than he could endure? Who was she to put him through this?

The hair around Bucky's face was trembling.

She uttered a single word,

"Zhelaniye."

* * *

**A/N: Bear with me. If I do my job correctly, the timeline will make sense as I write more. **


	3. Only A Miracle

The assassin reloaded his weapon and took aim across the street. Never blinking, never breathing, there was a fluid, inhuman grace to his movements. The gun fired and faint screams pierced the air as he quickly reloaded with a striking metal arm and marched forward. A black mask covered most of his face.

Grimacing, Charlotte turned away from the screen. She wrapped her arms around herself and noted the faint bumps raised on her skin. As she wandered back over to the white table where Shuri was sitting, she murmured,

"It's scary what people will do to each other."

The technology lab was empty save for the two of them. It was late and the usually bright lights that hung from white, scalloped sculptures in the ceiling were dimmed to a faint yellow glow. The perimeter of the room was dark and Charlotte could just make out a few silhouettes of various gadgets illuminated by the massive spiral ramp in the center of the lab. Yet she could feel the edges of her scalp itching as energy streams pulsed from the various tech spread throughout the room, like little electric heartbeats.

She leaned against the table, surveying the multiple screens suspended in midair that displayed digital files of the man known as the winter soldier. She held up a finger to one of the transparent screens and flipped to another page.

Shuri absentmindedly fiddled with a tool on the table. "I thought you should see his background, so you can know what we are dealing with."

"I didn't realize that anyone had successfully figured out mind control to such an extent. You said they used trigger words?"

"Yes," Shuri replied, her long legs dangling from the stool she sat on. "After each mission, they would wipe his memory clean using a primitive form of electroconvulsive therapy. For each new directive, they used a series of Russian words in a specific sequence to engage complete cognitive control. It's only recently that Steve Rogers was able to break into his deeper subconscious and begin to disrupt his programming. But the threat is still there."

Charlotte paused as another video clip began to auto play on a lower screen. He was strapped to a reclining chair, bare chest heaving. Several other men in ties and white coats tended to a machine before exiting the frame, leaving the soldier confined to a head vice with a mouthguard clenched between his teeth. Charlotte was grateful there was no audio for his scream.

She flipped to another file that showed a picture of the soldier. It was blurry, as if someone had taken it while running outside, quickly trying to snap a photo without him knowing. Dark, disheveled hair brushed his shoulders. He had a straight, fine nose, lips that bowed slightly downward, and shadowy stubble painted his jaw. Strong, dark brows hung heavily over piercing steel-blue eyes.

"He has beautiful eyes." Charlotte winced. She hadn't meant to say so out loud. "Empty. But beautiful."

Shuri sadly grinned. "He's a good man who has done a lot of bad things. But we can help him."

Charlotte looked away from the photo and faced her friend. "Where is he now?"

"He's here. We were keeping him in a cryostasis chamber until we were ready to begin treatment. We took him out a few weeks ago and moved him to the perimeter of the city. His memory recall has made significant improvement in relative isolation."

As Shuri talked, Charlotte spotted the dark figure moving through the lab, slowly approaching the Wakandan princess from behind. He raised a finger to his lips. Trying to keep from smiling, Charlotte quickly averted her gaze.

"So what exactly is your plan?" she asked.

With lighted eyes, the answer tumbled out of Shuri, as if she had been waiting a lifetime for a chance to explain. "The Hydra scientists were able to imitate a form of neurogenesis that allowed them to artificially stimulate the synapses and sensory neurons within the brain. We've managed to isolate the cortical remapping around the –"

He yelled into her ear and she jumped high off her stool, long braids whirling as she twisted in midair as fast a cat. She threw her fists into his laughing face, which he fended off with ease.

"T'Challa! For Bast's sake! I swear I will make you the shortest-lived king in Wakanda history!"

"Ey," T'Challa spread his hands apart in surrender. "At least we know your sneakers work well." She looked down at his feet, her lips puckering when she saw the fitted black shoes she had designed.

"My designs always work, dumbass." She landed a hard punch into his chest before wheeling on her friend. "And where were you, eh? Able to sense energy waves for a mile and you couldn't give fair warning?"

Charlotte simply shrugged.

T'Challa looked over at Charlotte, still smiling as he rubbed where Shuri's fist landed. "Apologies for interrupting your discussion."

"It's ok," Charlotte said, mirroring his amused smile. "I didn't understand what she was saying, anyway." The king chuckled.

Shuri hung her head between her hands. "My brother is king of Wakanda and my best friend is a metaphysical miracle. And I still feel like I'm surrounded by idiots."

Charlotte snorted. "Well I'm sorry that I'm only a miracle. Maybe next time I have a near death experience I'll ask if I can be sent back as something more useful to you. Like a Kimoyo bead."

Not entirely unamused, Shuri's nose crinkled as she smiled at her friend.

"You are looking well, Charlotte," T'Challa said. "What brings you back to Wakanda?"

"Your sister, mostly. Though I'm sorry I did not return in time to see your father again. I would've liked to have thanked him for all that he did. I'm so sorry to hear of his passing."

T'Challa nodded solemnly. "Thank you."

"How did your trip go?" Shuri asked, now completely engrossed in adjusting the tool she had been fiddling with earlier.

"As well as could be expected. We have a long road ahead of us, but I am confident the world will soon see Wakanda and its people as a leading nation."

"And not just farmers?" Shuri said, now writing on a small piece of paper. "I heard that imbecile at the conference." Then, in her laughably best European accent, "'What can a bunch of farmers offer ze rest of ze world?' I don't know how you do it, T'Challa. To just stand there and not say anything."

"That is why I am ruler and you are not," T'Challa said calmly, dark eyes surveying the screens and notes scattered about the table. "I see you are reading up on Sargant Barnes."

Charlotte looked back at the blurry picture of the winter soldier. "Shuri seems to think I could be of some help. Though I'm not exactly a psychiatrist, so I'm still not really sure what it is I'm doing here."

Shuri rolled her eyes.

"That man needs more than a psychiatrist," T'Challa said, nodding towards the frozen photo. "What is your plan, Shuri?"

"Cerebral re-calibration by deconstructing and then regenerating the neurons and synapses associated with each trigger word. I have developed an algorithm that will help to stabilize the neurological pathways that were corrupted by Hydra's soldier code, but Charlotte's electromagnetic biology is more fine-tuned and organic when trying to disrupt the electrical fields of the brain."

With her chin cupped in her hand, Charlotte glanced up at T'Challa. "Good thing I'm a miracle."

T'Challa smirked but said nothing. She watched his face a second longer, detecting an apprehension from him that lighted a spark in her gut.

"Here," Shuri slid the piece of paper she had been writing on to Charlotte. "These are the trigger words that are used to activate the soldier code. I need you to learn how to pronounce them in Russian."

Charlotte looked down at the list. They were written in English with their Russian translations to the side.

_Longing. Rusted. Furnace. Daybreak. Seventeen. Benign. Nine. Homecoming. One. Freight Car. _

"Shuri, I don't know Russian. How am I supposed to learn how all of these words overnight?"

The princess shrugged. "Google."

Charlotte tossed her head back, laughing, then folded the paper and placed it in her back pocket. "Of course. Well, seeing as how I suddenly have plenty of homework, I'm going to have to say goodnight."

T'Challa gave her a slight nod of his head. "Good night, Charlotte. Sleep well."

When Charlotte was halfway up the spiral ramp, Shuri called out, "There will be a test!"

The sound of her footsteps faded, leaving the Wakanda king and princess in silence. As Shuri began to turn off the various monitors, T'Challa turned his unblinking gaze to his younger sister.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"Logically, it's the best idea," she said, though her brazen confidence no longer lighted her face. "I could do it on my own, but we risk completely erasing Barnes' memories – again. And there's no promise of getting them back. Charlotte can manipulate specific energy signatures in a way that allow us to keep him – all of him – intact."

"Her abilities are not well understood. She has never done something like this before. Neither have you."

"Yes, putting a mind back together is a little trickier than a vertebra, but it can be done. We have tested the algorithm on several digital constructs of Barnes' brain. The science is sound. There will be safety perimeters and restrictions in place. I would not take any unnecessary risks, brother."

"I know you will not," T'Challa said. He glanced at the masked winter solider that was still displayed on the screen. "It is not you that I am worried about."


	4. Rusted

**A/N: Sorry for the longer wait time with this chapter. Was on holiday in the Netherlands. Enjoy! ^_^**

* * *

"Rzhavyy."

Bucky shut his eyes against the word. It did nothing to quell the sudden onset of lightheadedness. His teeth ground together as he fought the blank, white edges that threatened to swell and drown him. It was a futile battle, one that he had lost many times before. Panic began to seep in.

"Stop."

Charlotte instinctively opened her eyes at the command. He hadn't moved, standing rigidly almost halfway across the room from her, his one hand clenched into a fist. Chiding herself for hesitating, she closed her eyes again and refocused.

_His world turned white and gray. His lungs took in bitingly cold air. Snowflakes whirled past, dampening his hair as they melted on his scalp._ Bucky frantically tried to dislodge the world that was closing in around him.

"It's ok, Bucky," he heard her say from some distant place. "You're safe."

_The ground beneath his feet shuddered and clacked noisily, rhythmically. He carried a heavy, metallic object as a darkly dressed figure led him through gray tunnels. A door suddenly shut, separating them, and flashes of bright, loud light began to explode close enough that he could feel the heat on his face. _

"Rzhavyy."

_A flash of blue light and the world suddenly sharpened into definition. To his right was the gaping wound in the side of the train car, its metallic outer wall peeled back like a gray lily. Hot smoke filled his lungs while the scent of burning diesel fuel mixed with the frigid winter wind. To his left was a man in a blue suit crawling along the floor, still shaking his head from the blast. In front of him on the floor was an upturned shield. _

_ Reaching out, he grabbed the shield off the floor and quickly stood. Aiming his pistol for the monstrous shadow in the far doorway, he shot once, twice. His opponent retaliated with a single blue discharge and Bucky braced himself against the impact, tucking himself in behind the round shield. _

_ The ground beneath him disappeared. He slammed into the dislocated wall of the freight car, air tearing from his lungs as several ribs snapped. His hands seized a frozen pole and he clenched his fingers around its girth so tightly his fingernails split into bloody ravines. Snow and ice scraped at his face. Bucky looked down into the gray chasm of ice and water far below, his boots suddenly impossibly heavy as they swayed in midair. While his mind struggled to comprehend his imminent death, his heart flailed wildly inside his chest. _

_ "Bucky!" _

_ He barely heard his name being called over the roaring wind. Looking up, he saw the man in the blue suit. Unable to breathe, Bucky watched as he began to crawl towards him along the exposed side of the car. _

_ "Hang on!"_

_ Bucky inched along the frozen railing, his skin sticking to the metal and then ripping every time he lifted his hands. The bar quivered under his free-swinging weight. His right hand suddenly slipped. Ignoring the excruciating fire in his ribs, Bucky flung his arm up and reattached his hand to the railing. It groaned in protest. _

_ "Grab my hand!"_

_ Bucky looked up again, choking on the snow and ice that pummeled its way down his nose and throat. A single leather glove was outstretched towards him, only inches away from his right hand. He was so close. He could do this. _

_ Bucky reached out. The railing jerked downwards. _

_ "No!" _

_ His chest turned inside out as the world fell away. Snow and gray rock streaked past as he fell. Even as his scream subsided, his lungs failed to draw more breath. A dense cold rushed up to meet him. And a sound. _

_ River water. _

"Bucky!"

She grabbed a fistful of his shirt, but it wasn't enough. His knees buckled beneath him and he fell back, his weight dragging Charlotte down with him. Thinking fast, she cupped her hand behind his head, then instantly regretted it when her fingers nearly snapped between his scalp and the hard floor.

"Shit!"

Wincing and trying to ignore the throbbing pain in her hand, she rolled over on her side before sitting up on her knees and looking down at his face. His blue eyes were pinned to a distant ceiling.

"Bucky?"

He blinked a few times before orienting his gaze on her. "Are you ok?"

"I'm fine," she replied, still searching his face for…she didn't know what for. Distress? Pain? Drool from the corner of his mouth? Some sort of indication that she had irrevocably scrambled the brain of Captain America's best friend. "Do you know who I am?"

He nodded. "You're Charlotte." He was quiet for a moment as his thoughts seemed to turn far and inward. Then, "I remember."

Uncertainty made Charlotte's heart flutter and dip. Bucky propped himself up with his one arm until he was sitting nearly shoulder to shoulder with Charlotte, each of them facing an opposite end of the room. She hoped he couldn't sense the tension in her body, the coil that was ready to spring if need be.

"I remember how I died. How I should've died. But I didn't."

Charlotte looked over at him and her rigidity instantly melted. His eyes were heavy and dark. A few strands of hair fell across his stubbled cheek, curling slightly at the tip of his nose. His eyes found hers. Feeling suddenly foolish for staring, Charlotte quickly looked at the ground.

"Steve was there," he added.

When he failed to elaborate, Charlotte said, "It makes sense that they'd keep that memory from you. The point of evolution. The end of James Barnes. The beginning of the Winter Soldier. How do you feel?"

Bucky smirked and looked at her. "Like a fried egg."

"Very funny," she grinned. "But really, ho—"

"I'm fine. Not even a headache."

Charlotte paused. She wanted to believe him, and he looked well enough. Reaching inward, she extended her energy current over his and felt for erratic patterns. It was low and quiet.

"I need to try one more thing," she said. "To see if it worked."

Bucky's expression hardened, but he waited wordlessly.

"Rzhavyy."

She could see the fear flare in his eyes, the anticipation knotting the muscles in his forearm. Charlotte held her breath as she felt the gravity of his current briefly warp around him. A moment passed.

Bucky faintly shook his head. "Nothing. I don't feel anything."

Charlotte winced as Shuri hissed a triumphant, "Yesss!" through her earpiece loud enough for Bucky to hear.

"I take it that means it's working," he said, amusedly watching as Charlotte pulled the miniscule transmitter out of her ear.

Charlotte nodded, finally allowing herself to relax and smile. "Yeah. It's working."


	5. Seventeen

Charlotte closed her eyes. She didn't need to, but a dark world helped to eliminate the distraction of watching Bucky and added a clarity to her work. With her feet firmly planted on the floor, hands by her sides, she glided her current outwards until it reached his. She stayed there for a moment, letting their energies drift effortlessly together, like silken sails.

"Semnadtsat."

His current wavered and began to pull inward, disappearing into the deeper recesses of his conscious. She followed it, enveloping his mind gently, carefully, like a great cotton bedsheet falling slowly through the air. The edges of her own energy barrier cracked and fizzed as it brushed his electrical field.

"Semnadtsat."

She felt a surge as thousands of millions of hot, white lights raced along unseen channels in less than half a second. Frowning, she worked hard to tune out the sensation of his blood racing through his veins, the guarded tension in his muscles. His distressed current continued to retreat, haphazardly snapping and reconnecting as he faltered between his own conscious and another. Charlotte pushed forward steadily, letting his dwindling thread of energy guide her to the fragmented mechanism of his mind. Here, she found a twisted energy signal, straining to complete a journey along a channel that disappeared into a hollow abyss. Recollecting herself, Charlotte activated the signal once more.

"Semnadtsat."

The signal flared into an impossible color of light. She had no words for what she did next. It almost felt as if she summoned wind, alive and cold at the edge of a storm. She speared the electrical signal with her own energy. Oversaturated, it ruptured into nothing and was instantly replaced by another as the neurological forces desperately tried to connect. With timed precision, she sent out sharp pulses of electric current, eroding each signal and its pathway little by little.

A sharp pain suddenly shot through her neck. She steeled against it, biting down through the ache.

_Not here. Not now_.

* * *

_She gently peeled the bandage off the side of her leg, unable to completely hide her disgust at the sticky, yellow residue that oozed between the skin and the cloth. She had treated burn wounds before, and most were easily healed with a mixture of grafting composites and enhanced molecular regeneration. But these wounds were different. These had been inflicted weeks ago. _

_ And they were still burning. _

_ Shuri tossed the old bandage aside, glanced up at the readout displayed on the hexagonal pixels of the screen, and grabbed a new strip of cloth. "It looks good. See? There's a whole new patch of healed skin here." _

_ Charlotte reclined on an elevated gray table, barefoot and draped in a pair of Wakandan robes that were so thin they were almost transparent. It was the only material she could tolerate against her skin. A searing scar carved out a bald pattern on nearly half of her scalp, while the rest of her hair hung in miserable tatters. Burst blood vessels flooded the whites of her eye into a sea of startling red. Her right hand shook incessantly. _

_ She looked halfheartedly down at her leg. "It hurts like hell." _

_ "It should. The epidermal tissues in most of your leg are still actively burning, likely because there is less blood flow in the lower regions of the body, which means healing is a bit slower. I can give you something else for the pain." _

_ "You can try." Shuri's face faltered ever so slightly as she gingerly wrapped the new bandage around her shin. Charlotte noticed. "I'm sorry, Shuri. I'm not ungrateful."_

_ "I know. You're just difficult." She looked up at Charlotte, reassuring her with a wide grin. "I have an older brother. I can handle difficult."_

_ Charlotte said nothing and watched as Shuri tenderly finished securing the bandage in place. When she was done, she presented her bracelet of Kimoyo beads and took a scan of her entire body. Looking back at the data displayed on the screen, Shuri resisted the urge to shake her head._

_ "Well, aside from an erratic heart rate, hypoxemia, a fever that should have already killed you, and involuntary muscle contractions, you're a perfectly healthy person."_

_ Charlotte almost snorted. "So, what's the good news?" _

_ "The good news is that all of these symptoms are actually better than they were before." She turned to face Charlotte and immediately froze. "Charlotte? What's wrong?" _

_ Sitting upright on the table, Charlotte had her eyes shut hard, her right hand now tremoring wildly out of control. Before Shuri had time to cross over to her, the lights in the building hummed and flared a hot white. There was a harsh, searing crack and the pixelated display screen shattered into thousands of tinkling pieces. Shuri's wrist blistered in pain and the bracelet of Kimoyo beads exploded across the room, scattering like nothing more than marbles. The lights dimmed in unison. When the last shard fell from Shuri's braided hair, a gaping silence filled the room. It was broken by a sob. _

_ "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Charlotte started repeating over and over, her arms crossed in front of her and her head bowed. "I didn't mean to. I'm sorry." _

_ Shuri frowned. "You…you did that?" _

_ "I think so. I don't know." _

_ "Have you done that before?" Charlotte, choking on words, only shook her head. "Are you hurt?" _

_ A fresh torrent of tears spilled down her face. "I'm worried that it's never going to go away. This pain. It's everywhere. I don't want to live like this. What if it doesn't get better?"_

_ Shuri's gaze found her friend's right arm. It was no longer shaking. She crossed over to where Charlotte was sitting, transparent glass shards crunching beneath each step. With long fingers, she grabbed Charlotte's cold, white hands in her own. When Charlotte raised her glassy eyes to Shuri's, the Wakandan princess said, _

_ "I promise you I will not let you suffer. Clearly, we still have some variables to figure out, but you are making progress each day. I am determined to figure out why you were meant to survive all this, and I will do whatever it takes to spare you this pain. And if you lose your will to try…" _

_ Her voice trailed off as her dark eyes searched Charlotte's face. She took in the sight of her charred scalp and her frayed hair, her one monstrous, blood-red eye. Was it a mistake? Was it a cosmic blunder that she survived, only to shrivel towards death? She couldn't bring herself to say it. It would be the ultimate defeat. _

_ Charlotte's lips trembled and she nodded, sparing them both from admitting aloud what neither of them wanted to hear. Shuri gave her hands a hard squeeze in acknowledgement, then glanced around at the ruins of her monitor. She kicked a chipped Kimoyo bead away from her foot. _

_ "But first," she said, half-smiling, "I'm going to need you to stop destroying my lab."_

* * *

Charlotte opened her eyes. Empty, gray walls stared back at her. Panic grabbed her chest and she spun around until she saw him standing in front of the window, staring out into the dark veil of night.

"Bucky."

He sniffed, shook his head and looked down at his feet. "He used to bring books to the movie theater so he could sit on them and see over other people's heads. He was such a punk. Never took no for an answer."

Charlotte blinked. "You mean Capta—Steve?"

He nodded, a small grin on his face. "Did you know Captain America used to have asthma so bad, I had to carry him for part of a hiking trail on a school field trip?" Charlotte smiled, imagining a breathless Steve, wheezing and pink in the face as Bucky haphazardly slung him over his shoulder and trotted ahead to catch up with the group. "Or there was that one time I had to take him to the hospital because he caught a ball at a Yankees game, and it broke his wrist. Who would've thought? That dumb kid from Brooklyn as Captain America." A shadow crossed his face. "He was going to let me kill him. Why? What would that have proved?"

Charlotte's face wilted as she heard the hitch in his voice. "Nothing. Over the course of his life, he lost you twice. Maybe he figured it was better than to lose you a third time."

He glanced back at her with pink rimmed eyes, looking almost confused. Charlotte shrugged and offered the only anecdote she could think of, "Shuri made me read your files."

It worked. Bucky smirked. "You got that from a personnel report?"

"No." She grinned and turned away. "I got that from the way you described an asthmatic young man who needed booster seats."

* * *

**A/N: This was a really hard chapter to write. Still not convinced it's completely done, but I'm too impatient to keep fiddling with it. Onward! **


	6. The Lightning Bug

Charlotte breathed in deeply, savoring the scent of cool, wind-blown water and sunshine. Her olive-green canvas pants were rolled above her knees and she had shed her plaid buttoned shirt, revealing a plain black camisole underneath. Her hair, now partially drenched from the waterfall, swayed freely as she hopped from rock to rock.

"I bet you fifteen dollars that you fall and bust your ass," Shuri half-shouted from the grassy embankment. She was sitting cross-legged on a blanket and still chewing the last of her lunch as she watched her friend navigate the protruding stones in the stream. Two crescent-shaped cliff faces rose above them, water seeping down the thick, cascading foliage in smaller streams while the black rock walls in the center were hidden behind thick curtains of falling white water. Save for the pools at the base of the waterfalls, the ensuing river was relatively shallow, and the vibrant gray-green waters churned quickly as they continued to flow down the valley.

"I bet you twenty dollars that I fall and bust my ass!" Charlotte shouted back, laughing. She gingerly leaped to another rock before stepping down into the water and hobbling her way to shore, wincing as her soft feet found sharp stones on the riverbed. She picked her way back to where Shuri was sitting and laid down on the blanket, face-up, eyes closed hard against the African sun.

"I can't believe you have all of this around you and you never come up here."

Shuri shrugged. "I'm busy. Especially now that I have to head up the technology and information exchange. There is so much updating to be done in the rest of the world. I still can't believe you all are still using laptops." Charlotte snorted. "Besides, there's no one else who has time to come with me, either. What I can't believe is how many times I've invited you back and you never visit."

"I'm busy."

"Doing what? Blowing up microwaves?"

"That only happened once."

Shuri shook her head. "So primitive."

Charlotte defiantly held a single finger up in the air. "One. Microwave. I told you, they're usually professional speaking engagements. Energy researchers, medical universities, government engineering programs. They all have questions and I try to answer them and explain to them what I…feel."

"Have you figured it out?"

"Not really. It's like trying to describe what wetness feels like to someone who's never known water," Charlotte said, turning over onto her belly. "It's a whole other spectrum of senses."

"And they pay you for that?" Charlotte nodded. "You're such a scam artist."

"What? How?"

"Getting paid to talk about something you don't even understand. That would be like Elvis lecturing about the properties of matter. It's ridiculous. At the very least, it's fraud."

"Oh, what, like you have it all figured out?"

"Better than you do!"

"Fine, then you can do all the lecturing and I'll just sit there and be the trick pony. Oh, wait — you're too busy rescuing the world from laptops."

Shuri grabbed a handful of grass and tossed it at her friend. "I wouldn't want to take away your income. Then you'd have to come live with me, Bast forbid." Charlotte laughed and picked the green blades out of her hair. "How have you been doing physically?"

"Some days I—" was all Charlotte managed to say before two children clad in orange and red robes came running up the hill towards them, laughing. She sat up as they rushed to Shuri, breathless and white, wide smiles breaking across their faces.

"We won! We won!" The young boy shouted back in the direction they had come from, using a long stick to tout his success. The girl giggled and had her arm hooked around Shuri's neck. Charlotte looked back and saw a man approaching them, unhurriedly. He was missing his left arm.

"You won?" he exclaimed with a relaxed grin that suggested it wasn't much of a contest. "You're way too fast for me. I must be getting old."

Charlotte stood, noting how he stood nearly a full head taller than her, and offered her right hand. Still seated on the blanket, Shuri made introductions wile the children twirled around her,

"Sergeant Barnes, this is my good friend Charlotte Dawson."

He took her hand and shook it firmly. "Bucky."

It seemed like Charlotte had been preparing for days to meet him; she knew his name, his aliases, his history, his condition. But something still struck her about the man standing before her. He wore black pants and a white undershirt that was covered by a large, dark shawl carefully wrapped around his neck and left shoulder. His beard was a little thicker, his hair a little longer and part of it was loosely pulled back in a tie, leaving a few strands draped around his face. His bare arm was finely sculpted and behind his firm grip she could sense a well-controlled strength. Dark lashes shaded those intensely clear blue eyes.

She hoped she hadn't been staring too long before replying, "It's nice to finally meet you."

"White wolf!" the young boy said as he skipped up to Bucky. "White wolf, now you must come swim with us in the waterfalls! I can show you how to find fish!"

"There is lots of fish," the girl reiterated coyly, still clinging to Shuri.

"White wolf?" Charlotte shot a brief glance at Bucky, who shrugged. She grinned at the boy. "Where is my cool nickname?"

The boy twirled his stick and tapped it on the ground a few times, thinking hard. "I don't know," he admitted sheepishly.

"If you are going to fish, you need fishing spears and poles," Shuri said. "Why don't you go make some and let us know when you are finished?" The children ran off, the older boy shouting to his younger companion in an African dialect as they disappeared amongst the greenery and boulders. "Sit," Shuri motioned for Charlotte and Bucky to make themselves comfortable. "I hope you didn't mind me sending the children for you. They are very fond of you."

Bucky shook his head as he lowered himself to the blanket. "Not at all."

Charlotte grabbed at a small, silver cup. "Would you like something to drink after your footrace?"

"No thanks. Running for third place isn't exactly thirsty work."

Charlotte smiled and reached for her discarded shirt before sitting. Shuri noticed how Bucky's eyes were tracing the winding scar from her neck to her bare shoulder before she slipped back into her plaid shirt.

"Charlotte is going to help us with your recovery," Shuri started to explain. "But not before she has a chance to wine and dine you, first."

Bucky's eyebrows perked as Charlotte blushed into a furious red shade. The Wakandan princess laughed shamelessly.

"Shuri!" Charlotte hissed. "That's not true. Has she told you anything?"

"She said she found a way to get this junk out of my head and that she wanted me to meet you first."

"Because it's a bit complicated," she returned, still shooting daggers at her friend, who looked very pleased with herself.

"It's always complicated," Bucky said softly, earning back Charlotte's full attention. He looked tired. "I'm assuming you already know my story. What's yours?"

Those crystalline eyes that had seen more than she ever would witness were an almost intolerable spotlight. She lingered on his face a moment longer before looking out at the waterfalls.

"I have extra senses. We call it electromagnetism, but it's more than that. It's light, it's magnetism, it's a sense of animation in the earth, the air. Everything is infiltrated by it, living or otherwise. Technology, soil, us. It feels like…I don't know, and you probably don't care. But everything is composed of currents that constantly combine and interact and fluctuate. I can feel them and sometimes manipulate them."

"Manipulate them? How?"

Charlotte grinned and shook her head. "I don't really know. Bend them, augment them, eradicate them. It's not a very exact science."

"But it is," Shuri interjected. "She can detect energy signatures at great distances, and she can also identify microscopic ones within close proximity. Which means she constantly perceives an entire range of feedback from various sources and how they influence each other. The accuracy is in detecting energy correlations, not control."

Bucky's eyebrows raised. "Sounds overwhelming."

"It was," Charlotte admitted. "Things have gotten much better in the past few years."

"So how did you get these senses?"

"Well," Charlotte plucked a piece of grass and twirled it between her fingers. "I was helping my mom in the garden one afternoon when a storm started to move in. She headed inside as soon as she heard thunder and I stayed out to watch the colors in the clouds – they were beautifully gray and green and black-blue. Anyways…as far as we know, I am the only person to ever survive a direct lightning strike."

She motioned to the top of her head. "It blew apart part of my skull, traveled down my right side and exited my foot. My heart stopped beating on and off for days. When I finally came to, the world seemed a much more…intense place."

"I can relate," Bucky said, a small grin in place. "And that's not something I've said to many people." Charlotte lighted at his humor. "But I thought lightning was supposed to be hotter than the sun."

"It is," Shuri chimed in again, a little too eager to explain. "So, either Charlotte survived being struck by something that is almost 5 times hotter than the surface of the sun, or…" she paused and Charlotte half-expected her to start her own drum roll. "She somehow managed to interact with an upper-atmospheric phenomenon composed of electrically charged luminous plasma."

Charlotte exchanged skeptical looks with Bucky. "Did you catch that?" Bucky only smiled.

"We'll never know what really happened because the _technology_ wasn't around to document it," Shuri said pointedly, alluding to their previous conversation, "but it's a possibility. This kind of upper-atmospheric lightning has relatively colder properties and lasts for only a fraction of the time of regular lightning. It would explain why she didn't combust upon impact."

"Thanks, Shuri."

Her friend lifted a cup towards her as a toast. "Either way my friend, you shouldn't be alive. So, cheers."

Charlotte smiled at Shuri and tried to ignore the feeling of Bucky's gaze lingering on her.

"And this is good news for you, Bucky," Shuri grinned, "because she is going to help us to reroute the neurological pathways of your mind and deprogram your soldier coding."

He nodded. "I'm in."

"But Bucky," Charlotte could hear the pleading note in her own voice. "This isn't without risk. It's all very experimental and I know Shuri is doing her best to make it as safe as possible, but I can't do this in good conscience without knowing that you are ok with this. I don't know if you're going to just have a headache or if you'll hallucinate or—"

"Or turn into a fried egg." Bucky frowned at Shuri's comment. "Those were her words."

Charlotte gave Bucky a helpless look. "I didn't mean—"

"The worst thing I've ever seen her do is blow up a microwave."

"So, you're saying there's a small chance I might blow up into a fried egg?" Bucky smirked, somewhat enjoying the exasperated look on Charlotte's face.

"No—Shuri doesn't—I meant…" Charlotte spluttered. "The microwave was years ago. Things are a lot more stable now than they were back then. I'm not saying there even will be any side effects. There may be none! But the point is I don't know what's going to happen and I would feel more comfortable about this whole process if you acknowledge that."

A strained silence fell over the group. His half-hearted grin from a moment ago was gone and those unblinking blue eyes stared straight at Charlotte.

"What's the worst that could happen?" he asked. "You kill me? You erase my memory again? Because I can tell you right now, I can think of worse things."

His words almost made her sick as her heart tumbled inside out within her chest. Her fingers floated back up to the scar on the side of her neck.

"I'm afraid of hurting you," she finally admitted. "Of causing pain."

Any reaction she expected from the former soldier was sealed behind a steel, emotionless wall. "I know that fear. I live with it every day."

"White wolf! White wolf! Now we can go fishing!"

She looked over her shoulder to see the children running towards them again, this time with their little fists full of cleanly shaven poles and green, twisted rope furnished from plant leaves.

"Charlotte." She looked back at Bucky and flinched when she felt him place his warm hand over hers. "If this has any chance of working at all, it's worth it."

He let go of her hand as the children swarmed the group of adults. The girl handed out individual fishing rods to each of them, ensuring that Bucky received his first, while the boy whispered intently into Shuri's ear. Without warning, she burst into laughter.

"You have a nickname," Shuri giggled at Charlotte. "It is a very good one."

"Isibhamu," the boy said, fiddling with the edges of his robe.

Delighted, the girl chimed in, "Isibhamu!"

"Isibhamu," Charlotte tried the African word out on her tongue. "What does it mean?"

"It means lightning bug."

Charlotte heard Bucky chuckle beside her and decided it was her favorite sound she had heard all day.

* * *

**A/N: That was fun ^_^**


	7. Daybreak

**A/N: Again, huge apologies for the writing delays. I hope you find the wait worthwhile...**

* * *

_A giant black halo slowly lowered around his head. Every nerve in his body gave impulse to run, yet he stayed seated, unable to render any kind of motion into his own limbs. Harsh metal braces clamped around his face, each equipped with thousands of microscopic pins that anchored themselves into his skin. A sick, acidic panic started to work its way up his throat. _

_ "Zhelaniye_."

_Fire exploded behind his eyes as his entire body shook in response to the electricity. _

_ "Rzhavyy." _

_ Another convulsion. The veins in his neck bulged with the effort of his scream. "__Semnadtsat."_

_ The connection in his shoulder where flesh kissed metal began to burn and hiss. Immobilized by the halo locks, he could see only agitated silhouettes scattering around him. He could feel warm blood begin to trickle down his left side. _

_ Another shock. His body heaved violently and his paralyzed lungs spasmed as they tried to suck air in. His right hand twitched, once, twice, then finally released its fist. Blood began to drip steadily off the side of the chair onto the floor, like dark ruby seconds._

_ Ticking._

* * *

_ As the leather straps tightened, the cold, metal buckles threatened to pierce his skin. He could see only a dirty stone floor beneath him. Men were screaming. His men. _

_ The needle, nearly as thick as a pen, pierced the back of his neck, sliding easily into the soft space between his vertebrae. The pain starved him of breath and his open mouth yielded no sound, only a strangled gurgling. Saliva dripped from his bottom lip. His head slumped forward as darkness spared him from the living world._

* * *

_"Soldat." _

_ He shook his head and his stomach threatened to empty itself in his throat. Blood and sweat burned trails down his face and pooled in salty, bitter cocktails in the corners of his mouth. Both arms were fastened to the wall behind him and his right eye was oozing a dark, clotted liquid. _

_ "Soldat!"_

_ He lurched against his restraints, head bowed, silently fighting against the blackness that was soaking through his mind like spilled ink. _

_ "On ne otvechayet." _He is not responding.

_"Net. On prosto soprotivlyayetsya." _No. He is just resisting.

_The gun erupted once, twice, three times, each bullet shredding neatly through his hip. His wordless scream shattered against the inside of his skull and a hot liquid seeped onto his legs as his bladder emptied itself. Pink tears dripped from his nose. The restraints held him crucified to the wall as he began to bleed through his tactical pants._

_ Shuddering, he tried hard now to summon the cool peace of unconsciousness, to close his eyes and slip away into escape, but it lingered painfully beyond reach, unnaturally siphoned off by the serum flowing within his blood. In the recesses of his mind, the predatory shadow grew larger and stronger. Stronger than him. _

_ Someone grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled hard. _

_ Strong enough to survive. _

_ "Soldat?"_

* * *

"Rassvet."

The word, a whisper compared to his screams, dissipated into the room like thin smoke and took the last of his erratic energy signals with it. The sudden stillness of the room made Charlotte's skin crawl. She slowly turned away from the corner she had banished herself to in an attempt to escape his tortured cries and spotted him on the opposite side of the room. He was facing away from her, unmoving. She extended her current towards him and frowned when she felt nothing. She took a step closer, ignoring the fluttering warnings in her chest and widened her electrical field again. It brushed against a weak, hollow pulse. She studied his motionless back. A few moments passed as she struggled with the strange sensation that she was alone in the room.

"Charlotte?" Shuri's voice filled her ear. "Is everything ok?"

Charlotte ignored the question. She slowly crossed the room, never taking her eyes off of Bucky's frame, until she was standing just beside him. He stared blankly ahead, oblivious to her presence. His nose was bleeding.

"Are you hurt?"

He didn't move. The stinging tears in her throat caught her off guard and she quickly swallowed them back. She had no way of knowing which words triggered what memories, but she knew from enduring his screams that there were few darker places on earth than in the mind of the Winter Soldier. She dropped her gaze and an overwhelming sense of guilt seized her insides.

"I'm so sorry, Bucky."

Still, he said nothing. She glanced up, unnerved by the bright blood that was now dripping down his lips and clinging to his chin.

"Here." She pulled her sleeve down over her hand, devising a makeshift napkin, and lifted it to his face just as another crackle came through her receiver.

"Charlotte—"

The instant her sleeve touched his skin, he lunged.

* * *

Shuri's arms were folded across her chest, which usually meant things were not going according to plan. She was so engrossed in the screens around her, she did not notice T'Challa approaching until he walked through the display field, causing the hexagonal pixels to shudder and flash.

"I hope this trial is proving to be more successful than the first," he said, standing beside her and surveying the wraparound screen that surrounded them. It showed two people, alone in an empty room, standing on opposite sides.

"You and me both," Shuri grumbled. "I am sorry, brother. This was not supposed to happen."

T'Challa gave his sister a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "It is harder to control people than it is technology." Displeased with the truth, Shuri spared him an unconvinced look, so he turned back to the digital monitors. "Where are they?"

"The observation chamber."

T'Challa frowned. "That is a long way from here should someone need to intervene."

"I agree, but Charlotte insisted that they should be isolated. An empty room with no one else. No distractions, no monitoring. Less potential damage to be done, she said."

T'Challa's gaze found a section of screen that showed a colorful readout of two sets of medical data. "No monitoring, ey?"

Shuri smirked. "Aside from basic surveillance footage, I persuaded them both to wear biometric sensors. For research purposes. And," she pointed up to her ear, "Charlotte and I have commlinks."

"It is better than nothing," T'Challa admitted. "Have they made progress?"

She nodded. "Although this session has been particularly difficult for Barnes."

"How so?"

"We knew that traumatic memories and events were the most likely source of control over his physical actions. Hydra manipulated these to break down who he was and create the assassin instead. Well, in my original plan, he was going to be kept unconscious so that he wouldn't have to actively relive any trauma."

"And prevent him from engaging the winter soldier psyche." T'Challa realized. "Tell me again why you thought locking her alone in a room with an erratic super assassin seemed like a good idea?"

"I never said it was a good idea," Shuri growled. "At the time, it was the only idea."

The two Wakandans watched the unmoving figures in silence as a few seconds passed. T'Challa focused on Bucky's rigid figure. His shoulders were held wide, his one hand clenched into a fist. T'Challa's thoughts fled to Bucharest, where he could still vividly remember a mindless pursuit in an ocean of pulsating red lights and the mechanized wheezing of a metal arm.

"Charlotte?" Shuri spoke into her transmitter. "Is everything ok?"

Silence answered them and they watched as Charlotte crossed over to Bucky with agonizingly slow strides until she was standing beside him.

_Are you hurt? _

T'Challa's enhanced hearing cleanly picked the words from Shuri's earpiece. Bucky remained unresponsive and T'Challa felt as though a spider were beginning to crawl up through his spine.

_I'm so sorry, Bucky. _

The man on the screen remained a statue. "Shuri," T'Challa warned, "tell her to leave. Now."

"What? Why?"

"Just do it!"

_Here. _

"Charlotte—"

Shuri watched the blow knock Charlotte's head back with a resonant _snap_ before she skidded some distance on the floor. Stunned, she whipped around to face her brother, only to find him already gone.


	8. Furnace

Her head felt as though it had been cleaved in two and her lip was oozing something warm and sticky. Her stomach hurled its way up into her throat and she gagged on regurgitated air, which made the pain in her head worse. She tried to push herself up, noting the string of blood and spit that tied her to the floor, and collapsed, breathing hard as her head spun sickening shades of gray. Behind her, she could hear heavy footsteps thudding towards her.

_Shit. Shit shit shit. _

She thrust one hand forward and clawed at the slick floor, inching herself forward, until a fierce grip seized her by the hair and lifted her effortlessly from the ground. The artificial hair ripped easily from her scalp as he dragged her to the nearest wall and slammed her against it.

When the world stopped swirling, Charlotte rolled over onto her side and watched him throw his fist into the window. The glass hummed but didn't break and Charlotte clenched her eyes shut against his frustrated scream.

She blacked out long enough that when she woke, he had her pinned to a wall and the sharp edge of his arm pressed painfully against her collar bone, threatening to snap it if he so much as leaned forward. Charlotte could feel his breath on her face. Her right hand began to tremor. With no choice to look anywhere else, she lifted her dark eyes to his striking blue ones.

"You're…you're bleeding," she stammered.

He said nothing.

"Do you know me?"

"You're Charlotte."

She did her best to nod and winced as a fiery pain shot down her neck. "Do you still trust me?"

His nostrils flared and she noticed his lip trembling slightly. She caught herself wondering if he even remembered how to cry. The pressure on her chest eased a little.

"I'm trying," he whispered.

"I know."

Her left hand wasn't shaking as badly, and she slowly lifted it up towards him. He stiffened, but didn't move, even when her fingers were hardly a few inches from his mouth. She used her fingers to gently wipe above his lips and under his nose, cleaning away what she could of the blood. His skin was warm and prickly.

A bright burst of electrical energy shattered her senses. Bucky vanished with a grunt, the crushing support he was providing left her and she crumpled to the ground. Her vision was suddenly horrendously blurry; everything looked like runny paints, but she could see his dark robes twirling as he fought to subdue Bucky.

"T'Challa!" Charlotte yelled. "T'Challa, don't!"

Her cries went unheeded. Neither man was willing to yield and while Bucky snarled in frustration at his one-armed disadvantage, his flying kicks managed to catch the king off guard more than once. T'Challa swung a heavy fist, missed, then used the chance to link arms and hurl Bucky across his back and onto the floor. The former assassin used the momentum to roll himself back upright and the two collided again.

The pain in her head was becoming unbearable. The world flickered and sputtered like a dying candle and she was vaguely aware of someone was pulling at her underarms.

"…lotte!' Shuri hissed. "Charlotte, get up!"

"T"Challa," she felt the words fall out of her mouth like heavy marbles. "He has…to stop."

"Charlotte, you'r…seizure! …need… out of here."

She shook her head and nearly vomited from the pain. Shuri glanced behind her at the two entangled men. Even if she intervened, she decided, the two of them would live, however damaged or confused. Her friend, however…

Bucky began to feel that tickling, spiderlike sensation at the edge of his mind. He blocked several more blows against T'Challa until the distraction proved too much and his opponent pinned his arm behind his back, thrusting him forward. Bucky located Charlotte across the room, his eyes drawn to the bright blood that had leaked from her lip down onto her pale neck. Their gazes met, that irritating itching just beneath his scalp intensified, and he frowned at her in disbelief. There was no way she would—

_"Pech."_

* * *

The purple sky, streaked by rivers of darker blue and black, was full of white, dancing stars. An impossible dome that stretched from one black horizon to the other, like a celestial blanket that is both veil and gateway. Faint silhouettes of skinny trees stuck out against the midnight colors, like stencils etched into the night canvas. A soft, warm breeze blew across the large pond, rippling the reflection of the heavens.

Bucky crouched and dipped his hand into the watery stars. He watched them tremble for a moment, then cupped his hand and lifted it to the back of his neck, letting the cool water spill down his bare back. He couldn't sleep. He could never sleep. Aside from the night terrors and disjointed memories that plagued his efforts, there was that unsettling feeling, like the world was uncomfortable. It was too small, too big, too foreign. Maybe being kept unconscious for the better part of the past 70 years meant he was no longer entitled to sleep, but he craved it like nothing else. More than food, more than water, or warmth.

"I'm not sure I would sneak up on me," Bucky said calmly, still crouched by the water's edge.

"That is because you are afraid of you," he said, his voice confident and resonant in the still night air. "I am not."

Bucky stood and turned halfway to see T'Challa standing slightly uphill in the tall grasses, his black collared tunic rippling in the breeze. It had been days since their fight and Bucky had hidden himself away from the others, returning to his solitary home on the outskirts.

Bucky wiped his hand on the dark robes wrapped around his lower half. "Are you here to ban me from Wakanda?" he asked wryly.

"And why would I do that?"

Bucky huffed. "I figured you'd only tolerate me trying to kill people so many times."

"I have seen you attempting to kill your targets," T'Challa said smoothly. "That was not what happened back there."

The dark-haired man looked up at the Wakandan king, waiting for the pit to settle in his stomach before asking,

"What…how is she?"

"Charlotte will be fine. Shuri is keeping a close eye on her until she recovers." A pause. "What was it she said to you at the end?"

Bucky took a slow breath. "It was the next word in the sequence. She was still trying to break down the code."

"Ah. I apologize if I interrupted…prematurely."

He shook his head and looked back down at the small beach beneath his feet. "No. You did the right thing. If you hadn't of interfered…" Bucky unconsciously licked his lips, remembering the soft sensation of her fingers gliding across his mouth. "I don't know what would've happened."

T'Challa grinned. "I must say you had me well-fooled."

"How so?"

"For a moment, I thought the Winter Soldier had returned to Wakanda. But an illness often seems gravest just as the fever breaks."

Bucky thought for a moment, then nodded solemnly. T'Challa dipped his head, clasped his hands behind his back and began to walk away with all the regality of a lion, the grasses hissing as he brushed past.

He watched the dark silhouette retreat for a moment. "So, you forgive me for trying to kill you?" His reply made Bucky grin.

T'Challa chuckled in the dark. "Sergeant, to kill me you would need at least both arms."

* * *

"You're an idiot."

The first thing she saw was the familiar bag of fluids hanging over her head, like a rectangular, clear bubble. The rest of the world had not come into focus yet, but she could hear Shuri's voice as loud and clear as the chimes that used to hang on her mother's front porch.

"Am I?" Charlotte tried to focus on breathing slow and deeply, noticing how the two-word sentence seemed to exhaust her air supply.

"Yes," Shuri fiddled with a few of the medical readouts as she spoke, expertly twirling and pinching her fingers to direct the digital displays. "You were the one who insisted on being locked in a room with a dangerous man with no real exit strategy. You also failed to use your kimoyo beads as a defense mechanism like I asked you to. AND you proceeded to utilize electromagnetic energy while compromised and your brain experienced several seizures. Several! You're an idiot!"

Charlotte turned her head enough to look out the giant bay windows of the medical wing. Giant waterfalls plunged on the other side of the ravine. The sun was setting or rising, she couldn't tell which, and the pink-orange light it cast upon the cascading water reminded her of…something. She couldn't remember.

The room was restored, as far as she could tell, to its normal appearance. Clean, sharp angles and white, sterile walls were warmed by gentle lighting in the ceiling. The various machines around her hummed almost harmoniously, without the annoying beeping that came with regular hospitals. The air, always kept slightly cold, smelled like new carpet. She had spent so much time in this room, it was like a second home.

"I'm sorry, Shuri," Charlotte said slowly. Her lips felt heavy and full. "I'm an idiot."

"Thank you." Shuri clasped her long fingers around Charlotte's wrist and looked down at her friend with kind eyes. "How are you feeling?"

"Fuzzy."

"Are you in pain? One to ten?"

Charlotte thought for a moment. "Five."

Shuri pursed out her lower lip. "Not bad, considering. I was really worried for a moment there. Luckily, he didn't do any permanent damage, so you should feel fine in another day or two. He did give you a pretty lip, though."

She smiled and held up a reflective panel from her kimoyo bead. Charlotte peered into the makeshift mirror and groaned. Her chin was the size of a small water balloon and her bottom lip had a dark red fissure tearing across the blistered skin.

"No wonder I can't talk," she said. Her breath hitched. Wincing, she reached up to touch the hairless swathes across her scalp.

Ashamed, Shuri quickly collapsed the mirror projection. "I know, I know, I need to redo your hair. I was busy trying to keep your brain from going up in flames."

"And I appreciate that," Charlotte said, feeling as though the fizz of bubbles in her head was beginning to clear. "What happened to T'Challa? Where's Bucky?"

"They're both fine. T'Challa made sure Barnes was neutralized before he helped me get you to the medical wing. When he—Charlotte?"

Charlotte's eyes squeezed shut and her teeth audibly ground together as a tremor shook her body. The veins in her neck bulged and her feet and hands shuddered violently. The scar that snaked across her skin almost seemed to glow a translucent pink-red, as if someone were shining a dim flashlight from within. Shuri glanced up at the display screens but stayed by the bedside. She reached out towards one of Charlotte's shaking hands, flinching when her friend painfully seized it.

The episode lasted no more than a few seconds. Charlotte released her grip on Shuri, her white knuckles slowly returning to their natural pink. She left fingernail marks on the back of her hand.

"Ugh," Charlotte moaned. "This sucks."

"How often is this happening back home?" Shuri asked quietly.

"Does it matter?"

"Charlotte," Shuri sounded disappointed. "Yes, it does."

The brunette took a deep breath and sighed. "The surges happen a few times a year. I usually end up in the hospital for those. Some days the pain is tolerable, some days it's unbearable. No better or worse than my first year."

Shuri leaned over the bed and adjusted something on the bag of fluids. "In the world of science, consistency is a good thing."

"Right." Charlotte said flatly and decided to drop the subject. "You said T'Challa is fine. Where is Bucky?"

"Back at his hut, I presume. I have not seen him since the last session, but my brother spoke with him yesterday. He says he is recovering well."

Charlotte looked back out at the enflamed waterfalls again. The sun was definitely rising. _What was that word? Hot, fire, ember, glow…_

"T'Challa thought he had relapsed, didn't he?" Charlotte asked. "That he had reverted into the Winter Soldier."

"Well, when he nearly broke your jaw in half, it seemed a reasonable conclusion," Shuri said with a hint of a smile in her words.

Vivid blue eyes framed by dark hair flashed in her mind. "But if T'Challa hadn't intervened—"

The tumbling waters outside were a white-hot yellow now. _Gold, light, lava, heater—_

"Furnace."

Shuri frowned and waited for her friend to elaborate. Charlotte caught her friend's confused expression and laughed as hard as her throbbing temples would allow. "I was trying to think of a word I couldn't remember. It just came to me."

Shuri shook her head, caught somewhere between amused and hopeless. "I'm ordering you another brain scan."

* * *

A/N: Good things come to those who wait ^_^ This is definitely my favorite chapter by far, with the T'Challa + Bucky scene my proudest moment yet. Hope you're enjoying!


	9. Side Effects

While perched atop an empty table, Charlotte watched her friend buzz around the room and expertly shut down, deactivate, or reduce the power settings on various machines in the lab. Charlotte could feel the ceaseless buzzing in her mind begin to quiet as each mechanical energy sighed into a lifeless sleep. Shuri was wearing her high-necked white shirt and bleach white pants, giving her already lengthy and slender body the profile of an albino giraffe.

"…need anything, Hanta and Adili will be in the medical quarters," she was saying hurriedly. "We should be back in just a few days, but it depends on how badly those Korean scientists managed to damage their vibranium supply. Please wear your kimoyo beads – I'll put them right here – and if you need to, _use them_. My brother and I will both have ours."

"Did you buy goldfish for my lunches?" Charlotte said, grinning. Shuri spared her an exasperated glance. "What? Shuri, I'm not eight years old."

"No, but you have a medical history list so long my ancestors can read it. Normally I wouldn't worry, but the past few days make me a little nervous. You should still be in bed, resting."

Charlotte couldn't help but smile. "You're a good friend. The best. I promise I will wear my kimoyo beads and if I so much as sneeze, I will go see Hanta."

"Oh, he'll love that," Shuri grumbled. She stuffed a few smaller gadgets into a dark duffle bag at the bottom of the ramp. "Another thing," she said, approaching her friend with a pointed finger and a stern expression. "No more sessions with Barnes until I get back. I mean it. It's too risky for either of you."

"We could probably be done by the time you get back."

"Charlotte. Not only do I forbid it, but so does T'Challa."

"What? Why? It's not like having supervision really mattered anyway." Her own words surprised her, and she immediately regretted saying them.

"One more blow to your brain and he is without a cure for his." It put a quick end to the argument.

Charlotte opened her mouth as if to say something, then changed her mind. "Sorry," she mumbled.

Shuri sighed. "I'm sorry to leave you like this. I know you were excited about the progress we were making. I wouldn't be going if my brother wasn't insisting."

Charlotte placed both of her hands on Shuri's shoulders. "Shuri. As the lead engineer on all things vibranium, I would hope that you would prioritize damage control in Korea over our little experiment. Trust me, I've been dealing with this malfunctioning body since day one and Bucky literally has all the time in the world." Shuri chuckled. "We'll be fine."

As if on cue, T'Challa's voice cut through the air from Shuri's communicator on her wrist. "Shuri, where are you? We need to leave now, or I will leave without you."

"Coming, brother."

"Good luck," Charlotte crossed her arms and held them to her chest, giving the official Wakandan salute. Shuri mirrored the motion, then ran over to her bag, grabbed it, and darted up the ramp. Just before she disappeared up the final curve of the slope, she ducked back and opened her mouth to give a final warning. Charlotte beat her to it,

"Don't get sick, be sure to call you, and don't play with the soldier. Got it!"

Shuri laughed and ran up and out of view, leaving Charlotte alone in the quiet, empty lab. She absentmindedly stared at the black tiled floor and gently touched her jaw. The swelling was almost nonexistent now, thanks to the advanced techniques of Wakandan medicine. Pain still flashed through her at random, seizing her lungs and stopping her in her tracks until it subsided after a moment or two. She sported a dark scab across her lip and her head felt like a bowling ball. She probably _should_ go back and lay down for a while, but the other part of her knew she would only toss and turn and imagine a pair of deep blue eyes on every wall.

It had only been a few days since their last encounter. Apparently, T'Challa had spoken with Bucky and said he was "recovering well." Did that mean he had sustained injuries? Did he remember his outburst at all? The two men were obviously on speaking terms again, but she wondered about herself and Bucky. Was he angry with her, or just afraid? Was he avoiding her out at his hut? Would he ever forgive her for dragging him through whatever horrifying demons were living just beneath his skin?

Charlotte closed her eyes against the memory of his screaming. She had never heard anyone, or anything, scream like that before.

With a deep breath, she jumped down from the table and started towards the ramp. She stopped short at the sight of her bracelet of kimoyo beads resting on another countertop, where Shuri had distinctly placed them and pointed them out earlier. Charlotte hesitated a moment before walking past them, suppressing her pang of guilt with the rest of her aches and pains.

* * *

The terrain was getting steeper and in some spots the grass nearly reached his hips. Thick, green trees still shadowed his approach, an extension of the small forest that sheltered the lake and nearby farms and huts. Up ahead, the trees fell away and the land became open fields of rock, marking the final ascent towards Mount Bashenga. In the distance, he could see the top portion of the imposing tower that rose sharply from the edge of the cliff.

Even in the shade the heat was intense and he regretted not tying back his hair before he left. He walked purposefully, unrushed, his expression drawn inward by his relentless thoughts. Hopefully Charlotte had recovered enough to receive his visitation. If she even wanted to see him. His stomach curdled at the memory of dragging her by the hair, chunks of it tangled around his fingers after he threw her into the wall. He had done it. Him. Bucky. Fear and pain had driven him mad. And that scared him even more than the mind control. If he couldn't trust himself, then what was left?  
_Do you still trust me?_

Her voice, tight with pain, came back to him as he crossed a barrier of sunlight that marked the end of the forest. The heat instantly deepened, and he could feel the sun burying into the bones of his exposed shoulder. The other was wrapped in a shawl, as usual. He began the uphill trek, sweat quickly building on his brow and dripping down the sides of his face. The tall grasses began to fade and short, thorny bushes and sharp rocks replaced them. About halfway to the cliff edge, he noticed a small, darker shape crouched low amongst the sun-bleached land. He casually redirected his route, watching it morph into a recognizable shape as he grew closer. The shape stared back at him with bottomless eyes as he approached.

"Charlotte?"

She was sitting in the narrow shade of a twisted, dead tree that was little more than a stick in the sand. Her chestnut hair was piled in a bun on top of her head. She was wearing a high-necked, sleeveless top with leggings and a sand colored Wakandan skirt, embellished with red and amber beads, wrapped around her hips.

A stiff "hey" was all that she offered.

Bucky's chest tightened. Was she angry with him? Was she going to ask him to leave?

"What are you doing out here?"

"I thought I'd take myself for a walk. Just got a little tired. Where are you headed?"

Bucky eyed her carefully for a moment before responding. "I was coming to see you, actually." Damn, he thought he was going to have more time to finish rehearsing whatever it was he planned on saying.

"Well, you found me," she said, offering a small grin and he felt his shoulders relax. She patted the ground next to her. "Come, sit."

He lowered himself to the ground and stole a quick glance at her face, noting the dark scab on her bottom lip.

"Are you…are you ok?" he asked.

"I'm fine," she said, trying to reassure him with another smile. "Actually, this is all very normal for me." He frowned, which seemed to amuse her. "I'm usually in the hospital every few months or so with seizures and heart irregularities and other various problems. Turns out even if you survive lightning, it messes up your body for life. You may have…induced some of it, but you don't get to take all the credit. Except this," she motioned to her healing lip. "I'll blame you for this."

Bucky gave a half-hearted grin for her attempt at diverting humor but couldn't think of anything to say. Even if she was a chronic hospital patient, it didn't change the fact that he had taken his fear out on her. Violently.

"How about you? Are you ok?" she spun his own question back at him.

He nodded slowly. "I will be. I feel better knowing you're all right." He paused. "Why did you say the next word in the sequence?"

"I was just trying to get the two of you to stop fighting. I couldn't stop T'Challa, but I knew I could distract you." She looked over at him. "I hope it wasn't too harsh of a defeat."

He shook his head. "I've had worse."

They sat in silence for a moment, each of them pondering the meaning of "worse." There was a hot, dry breeze beginning to blow in from the west and Bucky hoped it would help to dry the tips of his hair that were still wet with sweat. He spared Charlotte another sideways glance and noticed the sweat trails streaking her cheeks and temples. Why the hell did she stop to rest under the shade of nothing but a dead branch?

"I'm so sorry, Bucky," she almost whispered.

"You keep saying that. What the hell are you sorry for? I'm the one who…"

She cut in before he could finish his sentence. "For whatever it was they did to you. For having to put you through it again. For all of it."

He looked over at her. Her elbows were resting on her knees, her chin on top of her forearms and loose, wavy tendrils of hair flowed about her face. His thoughts traced back to the sensation of her fingers tenderly grazing his mouth. The softest touch he'd experienced in over half a century had proven difficult to put from his mind.

"You weren't scared," he mumbled, unsure if it was a question or not.

Charlotte turned to look at him, her cheek squished against her arm as she shook her head. "Should I have been?" He ignored her question. "I was scared for you. Afraid that whatever I was undoing was undoing you in the process. But was I afraid of you? No. I told you. You wouldn't hurt me."

Bucky glanced at her lip again, doubtful. As he allowed his gaze to linger, he noticed a few strands of straw and grass stuck in her hair. Curiosity struck him, along with a small twinge of guilt at his willingness to experiment with her. Without warning, he fluidly lifted his hand to her hair and grasped at a piece of straw. She never flinched, or even blinked. Those doe eyes stared evenly back at him, unfazed, and he retrieved the brittle yellow twig much slower than he reached for it.

He grinned, pleased with her reaction. Or lack thereof.

"Steve has already allowed me beat him within an inch of his life," he said, flicking the straw away. "I don't need another friend doing the same."

"Fair enough. You hit me, I hit you back."

Bucky shook his head and chuckled, while Charlotte openly laughed.

"You're something else, you know that?" Bucky said.

"Mm." Charlotte looked out at the desert before them, combing loose hairs away from her mouth. "Can I ask you something? When was the last time you did something halfway normal? Like, ate a batch of cookies or planted in a garden or saw a movie?"

"Ate an entire batch of cookies?" He raised an eyebrow at her. "Is that what you consider halfway normal?"

"In my world, yes." Her warm smile was infectious. "If you don't eat the dough and half of the cookies while baking, you're not doing it right." She looked over at him, waiting patiently for an answer, he realized. "Can you remember? What does Bucky enjoy?"

He thought for a moment, then gave a huff through his nose and stood. "At the moment, I would thoroughly enjoy air conditioning. Come on."

He extended his hand towards her, frowning when he thought he saw her hesitate ever so slightly. Was she annoyed that he had skirted her question? Once she was on her feet, he began to walk away. He made it hardly two steps before she collided into him, her hands gripping tightly around his sides and her legs awkwardly far apart in an unsteady stance. Bucky spun around and caught her.

"Shit," she hissed. "Sorry."

With a clearing understanding, Bucky helped straighten her, keeping his hand on her shoulder the entire time for balance.

"You got tired and decided to take a break." He made sure his skepticism was heard. "I got a little dizzy and I fell. Same thing."

"And what were you planning on doing if I hadn't of walked up here?"

"I'm fine," she insisted. She gently covered his hand with her own and removed it from her shoulder. "Not the first time it's happened. Probably not going to be the last."

She started walking up the hill towards Bashenga, leaving him no room to argue. Bucky followed close behind, watching her feet carefully as she picked her way around rocks and shrubs. The tail of her skirt swayed light in the breeze, the red and amber beads glinting in the sunlight.

"See?" she said after a few minutes. "All better. Just needed a break."

Bucky shook his head, grinning tiredly at her stubbornness. "Whatever you say, lightning bug."


	10. A Risk

Charlotte wore her kimoyo beads religiously after that day, even though her symptoms were subsiding. She told herself it was to oblige by Shuri's rules, but the gnawing truth was that she couldn't stand the thought of another embarrassing encounter with Bucky. One more fall into his lap and he'd think she was a complete invalid who needed a full-time nurse.

"I'm going to be here longer than I thought," Shuri groaned, her holographic bust floating in front of Charlotte. "We need to stabilize their vibranium supply before it starts affecting the submolecular structure."

"How long will that take?"

"Maybe a week. We have to make sure the weakness hasn't spread to vibranium in any nearby regions. How are things there?"

"Uneventful, because you told me I couldn't do anything fun."

Shuri made a face and drawled, "She said, forgetting that she was in Wakanda." Charlotte laughed. "Have you seen Barnes?"

"Yeah. He seems…stable, I guess." Charlotte paused. "Do you really think what we're doing is helping?"

"Yes. I'm sure of it. Why?"

"He still just seems so detached. Uncomfortable, almost."

"Charlotte. The man is from the 1930's and was used as a killing machine for the past sixty years. We're not going to normalize him overnight. It's going to take time. Not to discourage you, but it could be another year or two before he may be fully recovered."

Charlotte looked somewhere at the ground, doubtfully. "Right. I just hope…I don't want to put him through this for nothing." She thought carefully for a moment, then added, "Shuri, would you…will you let me know how he does after I leave? Keep me updated?"

"Are you in such a hurry to leave?"

"No, but if it really does take years, I can't stick around that long. I just want to know that he's going to be ok."

"I know," Shuri said, grinning. "You've been worried about that since before you even met him."

Charlotte replayed the conversation in her head as she ferried the bags of feed from the side of the hut into the small wagon. The sun was low in the sky, filtering the land in a fading orange glow. The air vibrated with the buzzing serenade of hundreds of insects. Somewhere in the field a goat bleated loudly, screaming its disproval of a late dinner. Charlotte smiled at the sound. It reminded her of home.

She dropped the last bag of feed into the wooden wagon. The motion sent a fiery bolt of pain through her neck and up into her head. She froze, eyes clamped shut, waiting for the pain to pass. When her breath finally returned, she let out a long sigh.

"Can I help?"

Charlotte spun around, her hand flying to her chest in an effort to keep her heart from leaping out of it. "Shit, you scared me!"

"Sorry. Didn't mean to."

She was caught off guard by the sunlight on the man before her. She took a second to admire the way the golden rays warmed Bucky's skin and haloed the traces of red in his dark hair and beard. It glowed through his eyelashes, igniting his eyes the color of Caribbean water.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

_Staring rudely. _

"Ota and his son are out hunting and I offered to feed the goats for him tonight and tomorrow morning while they're gone." She caught him staring at her blackened hands. "I may have played in the garden a bit, too. What have you been up to?"

"Well," he glanced at the poorly wrapped shawl around his shoulders, "I spent most of the afternoon trying to tie this damn scarf with one hand." He gave her a lazy grin.

She smirked. "Come on. Help me feed the goats and I'll help you get dressed in time for bed."

She lifted the handles of the wooden cart and started pulling it behind her, down towards the field. When the load suddenly lightened, she glanced back and saw that Bucky had removed one of the bags and slung it across his shoulder. He looked at her but said nothing.

"When I was here a few years ago," she started saying, "I used to help on the farms almost every day. It felt good to do some physical labor after lying in hospital beds for so many months. It also reminds me of my parent's farm back home."

"You grew up on a farm?"

"Bristol, New Hampshire. Not too far from your Brooklyn neighborhood."

"But two very different worlds. Not to mention two different eras."

She hesitated a moment, then asked, "Have you been back?"

Bucky's gaze fell to the ground and Charlotte sensed a seal of energy closing around him. "No."

They walked the rest of the way in silence. As they descended down the hill, the sunlight disappeared beyond the ridge behind them and the golden glow was replaced by a cooler, shaded world of violets and blues. A herd of goats eagerly trotted up to the fence line, bleating and screaming as the familiar bags of grain approached.

"Here," Charlotte explained as she weaseled her way through the wooden gate, smiling at all of the curious muzzles that impatiently nipped at her fingers. "Open the bags and hand them to me and I'll do it."

Bucky obliged, watching passively as she fought to keep herself upright against the onslaught of hooves and headbutting.

"Did you have goats on your farm?" he asked.

"For a little while. We had milking goats and made goat cheese. They're funny animals. Stupidly mischievous and they'll eat the hair off your head, but my favorite animal we ever had."

When all of the bags of grain had been emptied and dozens of short, wispy tails were happily wagging, Charlotte leaned against the fence and watched them graze. She glanced over at Bucky, noticing dark circles beneath his eyes that she had failed to see in the sunlight.

"Did the children wake you up this morning?" she asked.

"No. Why?"

"You look tired."

Bucky gave another one of those weary half-grins. "Sleep is hard to come by these days."

"Because we've been scrambling your brains about."

He shook his head. "Even before that. It's this restless paranoia. And even if I do manage to sleep, the nightmares alone are incentive to stay awake."

"I take it Shuri is aware?"

"She's tried a few things. Her theory is that the treatment should help."

Charlotte thought quietly for a moment, then crawled over the fence and walked over to him. She started to unravel the shawl wrapped around his shoulders.

"How do you usually do this?"

"One of the villagers usually help. I try to keep it on for a few days if I can."

"Ah, so that's that smell," she said, teasing him with a smile. She re-draped the fabric around his broad shoulders, taking care to cover his amputation site as best she could. "Does it ever hurt?"

He shook his head. "Best doctors in Wakanda."

She nodded in agreement and finished tying the shawl in the cradle between his neck and shoulder.

_One more blow to your brain and he is without a cure for his. _

"We could finish it," she suggested.

His chuckle surprised her. "Shuri said you wouldn't listen to her. Do you just have a general disregard for rules or…?"

She grinned. "Says the guy who helped Captain America defy the entire U.N. over a book of rules."  
"Ah, I think that was a bit different."

"You're right, your offense was way worse than mine."

She saw a hint of eye-rolling before his face sobered and he looked back at her. Silence stretched between them as he contemplated her offer. "I can't risk it," he murmured.

Charlotte met his pensive gaze, suddenly very aware of their close proximity. At a loss for a good rebuttal, she casually sidestepped around him and began to pick up the discarded grain bags.  
"I stand by what I said when we started," she said. "I don't do anything unless you agree to it. Just let me know when you're ready."

She started back up the hill, leaving Bucky alone in the cooling shadows of dusk.

The next morning, Charlotte trekked her way down to the goat paddock in the chilly morning air. She clutched her oversized wool shawl tightly around her and wiped the sleep from her eyes, still bleary as she picked her way through the African brush. As she neared the enclosure, she strained to hear the bleating and screaming that always greeted her at the fence. Instead, an unusual sound filled the hillside – silence.

The goats were peacefully grazing on a scattered trail of grain and freshly emptied feed sacs were thrown onto the cart she had left the night before. She spotted him leaning against the cart and for the briefest of seconds, a flash of irritation snapped through her as she realized she could've slept in.

"Morning," she croaked.

He nodded at her but said nothing. Had she not seen him just the night before, Charlotte would've thought that weeks had passed since their last encounter. His cheeks looked hollow and the dark crescents beneath his eyes seemed deeper. Heavy lines etched across his brow and his shoulders were slumped in a defeated bow. She reached out with her current and blinked in alarm when she could barely find his. It felt cool and still, like the dead air within a cave that never moves.

She walked over to him. "Couldn't sleep?"

"It's getting worse," he mumbled without looking at her. "I needed a distraction."

Underneath her shawl, she wrapped her arms around herself. "What can I do?" He didn't answer. "You told me that if there was any chance at all, then it was worth it."

"That was before."  
"Before what?"

"Before I nearly killed you," he said, the defensive tone in his voice rising. "Before I realized that I don't even have control over myself."

"But you do, Bucky," Charlotte felt a twinge of shame at hearing the notes of frustration in her own voice. "It's because of your control that I'm still here."

"You're still here because someone intervened."

"I don't believe that," she said flatly.

"Then what you do you believe?"

The words, laced with a throaty tightness, came tumbling out, "That you're no different from anyone else. That when someone hurts you - like I did - you lash out. When you're afraid, you withdraw. It's what makes you human. And I wish you would take the risk of being human instead of believing you're the machine they created."

Bucky stared at her, his face void of expression. Charlotte placed a cool hand over the throbbing scar on the back of her neck and sniffed.

"That's what I believe," she said quietly. "Steve, T'Challa, Shuri…all of us want to help. But maybe you think you don't deserve it. And that's what I'm afraid of." She looked back out over the paddock again. "Anyways…thanks for feeding the goats."

Bucky watched her retreat up the hill. He could tell by her stiff and slow gait that she was in pain today. He wished Steve was here. Steve always knew what to say, how to shed silver linings over the shadows he seemed to cast everywhere he went. And if he was here, the punk would probably…

"Charlotte." She turned around and watched as he easily covered the distance between them in a few strides. "You know, when it comes to taking no for an answer, you're almost as bad as Steve."

"I don't know what that means, Bucky."

"It means I should probably never have you two in the same room together." He took a deep breath. "One word at a time. And you promised to hit back."

She said nothing for long enough that Bucky began to doubt his decision. He held her bottomless gaze for as long as he could until she finally asked, "Are you sure?"

"No." He almost grinned at her wilted expression. "But that's why they call it a risk, isn't it?"

* * *

**A/N: HA! I'm sure you guys thought I had given up on this story. So sorry for the long breaks between chapters - full-time jobs are not conducive to writings. Anyways, feedback is always appreciated! Cheers, have fun, be good! **


	11. Nine

"We're ready for you."

Charlotte started at the sound of Shuri's voice in her earpiece. Without her focus, the energy current that she had extended into the medical wing warped and retreated back to her room, bringing back with it the solid, abrasive edge of the soldier's current. He was scared.

She stared up at the ceiling of her bedroom, admiring the billowy, lilac drapery that hung from the ceiling. Someone had left fresh lavender in a vase on the dark wooden nightstand. Plush furs and skins lay strewn about the floor the and a soft breeze from a balcony window stirred the silk curtains. Moroccan-style lanterns mounted on the bedroom walls lent a dim, golden light that helped to calm the frantic noise and energy within her mind. She took a deep breath, savoring the lavender one last time, and rolled herself off of the bed.

Charlotte arrived in the medical wing with no memory of how she got there. The room was filled with half a dozen people or so, most of them in stark white lab coats. Shuri was studying a massive digital readout and conversing with one of the medical team. Next to her was what looked like a slimmed-down version of an MRI machine, with a plastic, clear tunnel that encased the table and ended in a halo of machinery at the top end. The electromagnetic noise in her head was overwhelming. Machines hummed, bodies pulsed, pockets of slight gravitational changes tugged and pushed. Charlotte took another deep breath and made her way over to Shuri.

The princess quickly eyed her friend up and down. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I could blow up a microwave."

"Here," Shuri handed her friend a bracelet of Kimoyo beads. "I've expanded your biomechanical sensors to include detectors for your electromagnetic signature. This way, we'll be able to predict if you do."

Charlotte slipped them over her wrist as her eyes drifted over to the man lying in the machine.

"You've anesthetized him?"

"The trigger words have been used to manipulate emotionally traumatic events and memories in Barnes' life as a means of controlling his physical actions. To an extent, we will also be manipulating these memories. I wanted to spare him this if I could. He may still experience some nightmares, but this is a much better option than reliving them while awake."

Charlotte walked up to the plastic tunnel that encased the soldier. He was wearing black pants and a dull gray t-shirt. His right arm trailed 3 separate IV lines and she noticed his feet were bare. Most of his face was hidden by the semicircle of imaging equipment. Charlotte wondered if the only difference between the scene before her and Siberia was the lack of restraints. A wave of unease, almost nausea, made the skin along her jaw crawl.

"Do you know the words?" Shuri asked.

Charlotte nodded and pulled a small piece of paper from her pocket.

"Read each word aloud once. At the end of the sequence, I will help you to locate and recalibrate the neuropathways that have been corrupted by the winter soldier code." She gave Shuri one last unconvinced look. Her friend answered in a low voice, "Charlotte, we can't leave him like this."

Recognizing this truth, Charlotte took a slow, deep breath and exhaled the word,

"Zhelaniye."

The room suddenly seemed as wide as a canyon, deep and hollow and void of all sound, save for the single, echoing Russian word. Bucky remained motionless, his current muted and soft. Charlotte took another breath.

"Rzhavyy."

She felt his energy buckle before the monitor had a chance to sound its alert. Looking behind her, she saw Shuri adjust something on the holographic display. Once she seemed satisfied with its readings, she gave Charlotte a reassuring nod to continue.

"Semnadtsat."  
More murmurs behind her as the science team stirred in reaction to what they were seeing on the screen. Charlotte didn't need to see it. She could feel it. The quickest flicker of his finger caught her eye.

"Rassvet."

Charlotte felt a warm growth in her chest, as though the sun were slowly burning its way through her sternum in an effort to reach the soldier's increasingly manic and spiraling current. One of the Wakandans walked up to the table and increased the flow of the anesthetic line.

"Pech."

As Charlotte watched the steady drip of the IV line, the back of her neck prickled as the heat in her chest grew uncomfortably hot. Instead of succumbing to the newest influx of an inhuman amount of anesthesia, his body went rigid. The next word fell from her lips in a taut whisper,

"Devyat."

She heard the plastic fabric rip as Bucky shot up from the table, heaving and gasping and drenched in sweat. With mindless speed, the soldier gripped the scientist's arm and the room erupted into panic. Charlotte backed herself against a wall, unable to look away from the scene unfolding before her. She saw the struggle playing out across Bucky's face as he held the whimpering scientist prisoner with a punishing grip. Bucky growled, dark and low, before throwing the man halfway across the room with a frustrated shout.

"Sistemnaya oshibka."

The gravelly tone was almost unrecognizable. The room suddenly quelled in an effort to hear the soldier's words. He sat motionless on the edge of the table, his hair damp with sweat and blank, dark eyes half-lidded as he fought hard against the anesthesia still coursing through his veins.

"Sistemnaya oshibka," he repeated.

"System error," Shuri translated. If she was as stunned as everyone else in the room, she did a good job of hiding it. Her gaze lingered on Bucky for a few seconds more before she finally turned to Charlotte.

"Are you ok?" she asked. Charlotte nodded. "Sergeant Barnes?"

He lifted his head and slid wordlessly from the table. With a tight stomach, Charlotte watched as he stumbled several feet until he reached the end of his IV tether. The sudden tug of needles in his arm ignited another outburst and Charlotte winced as he flung his arm, mercilessly ripping the catheters from his skin in a spray of blood. His balance dislodged, he fell heavily into the monitoring equipment and a glass screen exploded into a million glittering blue shards.

He remained sitting motionless on the floor, frowning at the ground as his sobriety returned to him. Charlotte cautiously approached and knelt beside him, the sound of crunching glass beneath her feet as loud as fireworks in the deathly quiet room.

"Bucky?"

He gave no indication that he heard her. She reached out and gently placed a hand on the back of his shoulder, inwardly praying for any reaction, even a violent one. His gaze remained fixed to something none of them could see.

"Shit," Shuri hissed under her breath. "He's catatonic." She turned to her team and instructed something in low, quiet Wakandan. Charlotte became vaguely aware of people moving about the room, but her gaze was fixed on the dry rivulets of blood on his arm. His wounds had already clotted.

"We'll take him down to my lab until he recovers," Shuri explained. As she said so, two of the scientists lifted Bucky to his feet and slowly escorted him from the room. Charlotte remained sitting a moment longer, mindlessly toying with a piece of glass until the medical wing was empty except for her and Shuri. Several, long moments of silence stretched between them.

"What a mess," Shuri breathed. Charlotte looked up at her friend, who surveyed the room with crossed arms and furrowed brows. "I don't understand. We ran this algorithm dozens of times and never had an outcome like this."

"Well," Charlotte stood and started to slowly wander the room, "he is a super soldier."

"Exactly. Which is why we were using a super soldier dose of sedatives for the procedure."

"Maybe there was some kind of built-in failsafe to prevent deprogramming?"

Shuri shook her head. "We've mapped and scanned his entire brain. If such a thing existed, it would've been replicated in our trial runs. What were you perceiving?"

"An electromagnetic nightmare."

Charlotte approached the IV pole on the ground and stopped, studying the damp puddles of spilled fluids. There was also a darker, rust color scattered about like confetti. _A super soldier dose. _

"Shuri, was this drug formula similar to what they might have used in Siberia?"

"Probably somewhat similar. I'm not sure what compounds they used."

Charlotte glanced around the room again, reimagining the scene just moments ago. Scientists is white coats studying an incapacitated figure on an operating table. The medical team glides oversized needles in and out of his forearms, translating notes on holographic screens. A series of Russian words…

Charlotte let out an unsteady breath. "Somewhat similar is all it took. Shuri, all we did was recreate Siberia."

"Which is why we anesthetized him; to remove any traumatic exposure."

"We sedated his brain activity," Charlotte explained. "That's all anesthesia is. But we are made up of so much more than our brains."

Shuri crossed her arms and Charlotte could tell her thoughts were already miles ahead of her own. "You're saying he overcame drug-induced unconsciousness due to severely traumatic physical memory? That his body actually recognized and rejected the pharmaceuticals we gave him?"

"Physical, emotional, and chemical memory. It would also explain why your algorithm never calculated this result; your digital construct didn't account for the rest of the organism."

"Listen to you, sounding like a true biologist," Shuri grinned, then pensively studied her friend in a way that made Charlotte feel akin to a lab rat. "Did you help him?"

"What?"

"This 'electromagnetic nightmare.' You knew he was in distress before we did. Did you help revive him somehow?"

Charlotte thought back to the burning sensation in her chest, realizing now that Shuri was probably right. Perhaps what she felt wasn't her energy field, but his trying to find a way to escape. "If I did, I didn't do it consciously."

Shuri nodded slowly. "We chose to perform his treatment this way because it was safest. For him, for the team, and for you."

Charlotte looked around at the shattered glass and raised an eyebrow. "Well that worked out well, didn't it?"

"Ok, smart-ass. But if he reacted this way to his treatment while unconscious, what makes you think that it could be better if he's awake?"

"I don't know if it'll be better," Charlotte said with a slight shrug. "I'm sure we'll still be testing his limits. But if we approach this differently, then maybe we have a chance at actually curing him."  
"Whatever you're about to suggest, I can tell I won't like it."

She grinned and glanced out the window at the cascading falls on the other side of the ravine. "No injectables, no machines or monitoring. And no one else, to minimize any potential damage. Just me and him."

Shuri's steadfast confidence was gone and a rare darkness tinged her eyes. "That's dangerous. I didn't—"

Before she could open her mouth to say more, a metallic beep from her transmitter announced an incoming transmission.

"Shuri. Sergeant Barnes appears to have recovered from his cataonia, but he remains unstable. We're having difficulty confining him."

Shuri and Charlotte exchanged looks. The brunette took the lead, "And I guess we do this now."

Shuri's lips tightened as she mentally sped through any other possible solutions. Charlotte waited patiently, tensely. She absentmindedly reached for the scar behind her ear.

"Shuri?" the voice spoke again.

"Dammit," Shuri hissed under her breath and started to walk away at a brisk pace, motioning for Charlotte to follow. "Bring Barnes to the observation chamber now. We'll meet you there."

Charlotte struggled to keep up as Shuri's long strides gracefully carried her ahead. As they walked through the long hallways of the palace, Shuri instructed,

"We will be remotely monitoring you and Barnes at all times. Here," she plucked off one of her Kimoyo beads. "Keep this in your pocket. It creates a self-defense barrier should you need to use it. To activate it, throw it against the wall or the ground – any hard surface." Shuri turned a sharp corner and Charlotte skidded after her, trying to process the words that were spilling out at a speed only Shuri could manage. "With him conscious, you won't be able to complete an entire sequence, so we'll have to engage each trigger word individually and recalibrate them one by one. Deconstructing the neurologic pathways this way will be slower, but the process will basically be the same. You will probably have to repeat some words to elicit an isolated signal strong enough for recalibration."

As they approached the end of the hallway, Charlotte noted three of the scientists from the medical wing were standing attentively outside a pair of unassuming gray doors. As they neared, Charlotte had to blink away the electromagnetic pressure from those deceptively simple vibranium doors. Shuri briefly conversed with the scientists in Wakandan dialect, then hesitantly turned to her friend. Charlotte had never seen her look so worried before.

"Are you sure you want to do this? This isn't what I intended for you to do."

"My, how the tables have turned," Charlotte gave a weak grin. "An hour ago you were saying we can't leave him like this."

"An hour ago, I was in control."

Charlotte nodded. "I promise I want to do this. Now more than ever."

Shuri wrapped her long arms around Charlotte. "Be careful. I will help you if you need it."

She didn't remember the doors opening or passing through the threshold into the blank room. The chamber seemed to materialize around her, like the setting of a dream, and there was only silence and her and the lone soldier. She focused on the man standing on the opposite side of the room, staring blankly, dazedly at the wall in front of him. He never acknowledged her entry.

"Do you trust me?"

He didn't answer.

"Bucky, look at me." His eyes finally left the wall he had been staring at and met her gaze. "Do you trust me?"

* * *

**A/N: I feel like I've just wrapped up the prettiest and most neatest Christmas package ever =D Also, bless the lot of you that still come here to read this story. It will get finished. I promise. **


	12. Benign

"_Dobrokachestvennyy."_

The diseased light that had been gradually fading finally quieted into nothing. She released her grasp on his mind and slowly, carefully withdrew her current. When she was convinced the channel between them was completely severed, she opened her eyes. Two small lanterns offered more flickering shadows than light throughout the single-room hut. Straw and thatched walls curved upwards into a low domed ceiling. A single cot was elevated on a wooden frame and simple shelves, made of a mix of wood and petrified mud, lined the perimeter of the room. In the center were a few cooking pots and small bowls suspended over a dark firepit. The entryway was an empty, rounded doorframe that permitted easy entry for the night air and the resonant chorus of crickets outside. Everything was in its place as she remembered it, save for him.

He was sitting against the wall with his elbow resting on his bent knee, his other leg outstretched across the floor. His head hung heavily on his neck as he stared, almost glowering, at a spot in the sand. Charlotte waited patiently for any cue to break the silence, to signal that he registered where he was. _Who_ he was.

He never moved, but those blue eyes shifted from the ground to her. The glittering lantern illuminated the tear stains on his cheeks.

"317 missions. 246 threats neutralized. 151 targets assassinated. I remember all of them. Their faces. Their voices." He sniffed. "I don't want to fight anymore. But I'm afraid that's all I know how to do. You can't unbuild a soldier. Not completely."

"No. But I can forgive him."

Bucky swallowed the stinging knot in his throat as more hot tears leaked onto his cheeks. Through the watery haze of tears, he could see her sitting perfectly still on the floor across from him. Her dark eyes were quiet and gentle and her long auburn hair clung to her bare, pale shoulders in graceful waves. It was the first time, he realized, she had worn her hair down since the observation chamber. His chest swelled until it hurt.

"I…" he choked. "I don't want to fight anymore."

The tears fell steadily. Bucky curled his body inward and tried to suppress the sobs that threatened to drown him. His hand clenched a fistful of hair. A warm pair of arms wrapped themselves around his shoulders and pulled him close. The faint scent of lavender filled his mind and he became vaguely aware of her chin resting softly atop his head. Folded in her embrace, Bucky was powerless against the onslaught of cries that he released into her chest.

Charlotte closed her eyes and pressed her lips into his hair. The world seemed to melt away into some distant place, leaving her and the soldier alone to endure the shuddering that plagued his powerful body. Time escaped, the light faded, and as the night deepened, even the crickets ceased to serenade the African skies.

* * *

Everything hurt, from her throbbing temples to the dull drilling in her back. She procrastinated waking for as long as she could, hoping that keeping her eyes shut would keep the world and the pain at bay. In an effort to alleviate the knife in her hip, Charlotte rolled over and immediately bumped against something heavy and warm.

She opened her eyes and her heart catapulted itself against her ribcage. He was still asleep, so close that she could feel his steady, slow breathing on her face. She held her breath hostage as she studied him a moment more, drinking in his peaceful expression. His slender lips were slightly parted and the creases in his tanned forehead faded beneath a few willowy vines of dark hair…

Charlotte ripped her gaze away, realizing that her chance to leave the bed was now or never, and tenderly disentangled herself from the blanket. Funny, she didn't remember grabbing the blanket last night. Then again, she didn't remember lying down, either.

_At least our clothes are still on_.

She lingered on the edge of the cot and breathed through the pain that was radiating from her bones.

"White wolf! White wolf!"

The giggling children burst through the light that was filtering in through the open doorway, kicking up swirls of sand and dirt with their bare feet.

"Shh!" Charlotte stood and hissed at them between clenched teeth. The boys stopped in the doorway, eyes wide at this unexpected stranger in the white wolf's hut. "He's sleeping," she whispered and tried to usher them outside. "Let's go back outside."

"No," one of the boys protested. "He is just pretending. It is a game."

"It is a game," the youngest repeated.

Her heart wilted. "Not this time—hey, psst!"

The youngest slipped past her outstretched arms and trotted up to the bed, where Bucky lay just as she had left him. The boy waited silently for several seconds. Then, he raised a single finger and pointed it at the man's lips, inching closer and closer with a sheepish grin.

"K'Tamu—"

Bucky shot up with a roar that made Charlotte jump and the children exploded into laugher and screams. He grabbed the youngest boy, rendered useless by his own giggling, and wrestled him onto the cot. Bucky threw the blanket over the boy's head and pinned him on the bed before the others came to their friend's rescue. Small hands and white smiles and dirty bare feet clawed their way up and over the soldier as he laughed and fought off the miniscule army with one arm. Eventually, the youngest broke free of his imprisonment and they managed to topple Bucky onto his back and return the favor of smothering him with his own blanket.

"Uxolo!" Bucky shouted, wincing and laughing as one of the boys pulled his hair. "Uxolo!"

The boys leapt from the bed and began to parade around the firepit, clearly proud of their victory. When they marched their way out of the hut, Charlotte turned to Bucky.

"What is 'uxolo?'"

"It means 'peace.'" He ran a hand through his disheveled hair. "At least that's what they taught me. It could be a curse word, for all I know."

Charlotte grinned, watching as he stood and stretched his arm up to the thatched ceiling.

"Had me fooled," she said. "I thought you were actually asleep."

"I was." She blinked. "Until I heard them come in." He seemed to hesitate. "Did you sleep?"

"I must have, but I'm paying for it this morning. My shoulders are killing me. And my neck. Everything hurts. Not to sound ungrateful for letting me sleep with you…" _what the shit?! _"I mean, I feel like I'm 80, even on the best of days, so your cot didn't do me any favors."

His mild smirk did little to tame the awkward silence that quickly filled between them.

"What about your nightmares?" she grasped at her next coherent thought. "Did you dream last night?"

"I woke up once. We were both asleep on the ground, so I moved us to the bed. Next time, I'll just leave you on the floor."

Charlotte rolled her eyes and was about to make her exit but was stopped by a rough hand grabbing one of her own. His fingers easily curled over hers and he squeezed ever so lightly.

"Thank you."

He flashed her a brief grin, then brushed past and stepped into the daylight.

Charlotte lingered for a moment. She let her current drift outside, sensing the new light that was beginning to filter through the hazy morning air. She could feel the flittering energy of birds as they skittered in and out of the tall grasses and the tendrils of currents that spilled into the air as the body of the earth began to warm in the sun. Charlotte smiled as her current reached the lone presence of a soldier standing in the middle of it all.

"Uxolo."


	13. Homecoming

Someone had replaced his mask, the edges digging painfully into his skin. He couldn't breathe. He had to get it off. Somewhere nearby, the thudding whir of helicopter blades vibrated his chest. He began clawing at the black mask, desperate to breathe. Metal fingers scraped and peeled at the skin around the mask. The helicopter was getting closer, a high-pitched whine slicing through the deep _whomp-whomp-whomp_ of the blades. He was running out of time. The mask was starting to melt onto his skin. Breath. He needed to breathe. He couldn't breathe—

Bucky shot up, gulping air. He reached for his face. The mask was gone, though he could still hear the droning helicopter. After several heaving breaths, the helicopter became a large black fly, buzzing dumbly from wall to wall. He looked down at himself - drenched in sweat with a few rivulets of dried blood on his chest. There was a matching dark color under his fingernails. He removed his shawl, revealing the shallow gouging around his left shoulder. Sighing, he stood and grabbed an extra scrap of cloth before walking out of the hut.

As he washed his wounds at the water's edge, Bucky tried to ignore the sounds of the African world around him. The insects buzzed incessantly. Monkeys were screaming from the treetops nearby. Frogs chirped and bellowed in the muddy water. And there was a bird. A swooping, high-pitched call that grew louder and louder until he could hear nothing else. Like a siren echoing off of steel gray walls. Gun shots riddled the air and he screamed as several themselves in his back. The siren wailed, bemoaning the very prey it sought to expose. The outside world was as gray and bleak as the hallways of the facility. The snow crunched beneath his boots as the sharp cold of winter added a clarity to his senses. Droplets of blood on the snow as vivid as roses. Crisp air burned its way down his throat, biting at his lips and nose. He could smell the torched scent of gunpowder and fresh snow. And that damned siren–

Bucky gasped as someone touched his hand. Winter faded into summer and the snow sprouted brown grasses. Sunlight and warmth and water resurrected around him. He knew these things…Wakanda. He was in Wakanda.

He looked down at the young boy standing in front of him. No more than 8 years old, with white dots of paint around his eyes, he stared intently at Bucky. The two watched each other for a moment in silence until the boy frowned at the swollen gashes on his shoulder.

"It's ok," Bucky grunted. "It was an accident."

The boy wordlessly walked over to a dry spot in the grass and began digging with his hands. Bucky watched as he shoveled deeper and deeper, until the sandy topsoil was replaced with a rich, dark earth. Then the boy collected as much as he could carry in one hand and brought it to the water's edge. He mixed the dirt with a few drops of water and massaged it into a pasty clay.

"Special Wakanda dirt. It helps," he said and motioned for Bucky to come close.

Bucky knelt so that he was eye-level with the boy and stayed perfectly still while he gently applied the paste with his miniature fingers. To his surprise, a coolness began to soothe his torn skin.

"What happened to your arm?"

Bucky thought for a moment. "It was broken, so they had to take it off."

"Does it hurt?"

"Not anymore." Bucky glanced down at the muddy badge on his shoulder as the boy delicately finished covering all signs of his wounds. "What is your name?"  
"N'Wabi. What is your name?"

"Bucky."

He giggled. "Book-ee?" The man chuckled at the boy's amusement and nodded. "Book-ee! That is a silly name."

A group of young boys ran past, a few of them calling for N'Wabi. He shouted back something in Wakandan and turned back one last time to Bucky.

"It feels much better already, N'Wabi. Thank you."

The boy ran off to join the others, with a final, "Bye Bookee!"

He grabbed for his discarded shawl and stood, watching the children run off into the woods. A dark, creeping fear inked into his chest as he wondered how long he had been standing there before N'Wabi touched his hand. What was happening? Why couldn't he tell memory from reality? Had it even been a memory? He sighed, bitterly thinking that he might've preferred no memory at all, compared to this mess.

A crunch in the grass behind him grabbed his attention. She looked concerned.

He glanced down at his muddy chest and raised his hands helplessly. "I can explain."

Her smile burst into a muted giggle. Her hair was pulled back in a loose braid, but a few unruly wisps stuck to her bowed lips. A slim, patterned halter top left her shoulders exposed to the sunlight.

"The soil contains trace amounts of radiation from the meteorite," she said. "T'Challa said he used the mud on his entire body once after climbing a tree that belonged to a hive of black-clawed hornets."

Bucky's face twisted. "That sounds awful." He paused, suddenly confused. "Wait, what meteorite?"

Charlotte motioned for his shawl. "Millions of years ago, before Wakanda even existed, this area of Africa was struck by a meteorite made of vibranium," she explained as she gently tied his wrap around his shoulders. "It's the metal that Steve's shield is made of."

Bucky knew he should've sounded more impressed, but all he could mumble was, "Small world."

He glanced down at her bare shoulders as she finished tying his shawl. For the first time, Bucky saw the true extent of her scar as it split down from her neck and spread across her shoulder and chest. Delicate, almost flowery fingers branched off from the main stalk of the scar. As if the shape of lightning had been seared into her skin.

She finished tying his shawl and stepped back, almost self-consciously.

"I was hoping you were sleeping in this morning."

He shook his head. "Been a long night."

Her eyes darted to his wounded shoulder. "We don't have to continue. If today's not a good day—"

"Charlotte, if we wait for me to have a good day, we could both be stuck here for a long time."

She opened her mouth, but Bucky could tell that whatever she was about to say evaporated into something else. "Would that be such a bad thing? Or are you sick of me already?" She laughed at his expression. "Come on. Let's walk."

They roamed the surrounding countryside for the better part of the day, through tangled woods, sun-drenched fields, grasslands and gurgling rivers. They spoke little – a more detailed explanation of exactly what a black-clawed hornet was left Bucky regretting that he'd asked at all – and spent most of their trek in silence. If Charlotte was in any pain today, she was concealing it well. He kept a close eye on her, watching for any hitch in her gait or change in her breathing, and a slight guilt razed his chest for doing so. It felt eerily familiar, like tracking a target. Like looking for a weakness.

As they were walking through a meadow of grasses and thorny shrubs, a sudden, stiff wind tossed a wave of dirt and sand into the air. Charlotte disappeared behind a veil of dust and Bucky shut his eyes against his own hair as it whipped at his face.

"Soldat!"

His eyes snapped open. The broad man with blonde eyebrows held his fist high, red and wet with blood.

"Ne atakovat!"

He raised his arms to defend himself but the movement was jagged, undercut by the conflicting words that were feeding from his earpiece.

"Ne atakovat!"

Seeing his chance, the blonde punched a heavy uppercut into the winter soldier's ribs while disarming him of his knife. Newly armed, he lunged at his opponent in the black mask and sank the knife deep into his thigh.

The winter soldier roared, a muffled, strangled sound behind the mask, and redoubled his efforts with blinding ferocity. He had the man by the throat, the metal prosthetic whirring as he began to crush veins and skin in an effort to reach bone buried deep within.

"NE ATAKOVAT." _DO NOT ATTACK. _

He dropped his opponent to the ground and took several steps back, impassively watching as he sputtered and gasped back to life.

The man in black mask said the only words he knew how to. "Ya gotov otvecha." _Ready to comply._

"Podozhdite." _Wait. _

He did as he was told, even as his adversary towered to his full height and drew back another rounded fist. The blow was heavy and hard and he could feel a sharp crack as a tooth split within his jaw despite the industrial-grade mask. His adversary forced him against a wall and continued to throw thick fists into the soldier's face and hurl mammoth strikes into his chest. Another blow to the face ripped the mask off his face, leaving him exposed to the mercy of his opponent.

Something in him was dying. Some thin, conscious instinct to defend himself. His body ached to fight, to run, to escape. To live. Yet the wires and anchors and black fields of his mind caught and smothered every impulse until he no longer recognized them. The soldier took every blow silently, willingly, until his face was so slippery with his own blood that his opponent's fists slid off his skin.

He finally collapsed onto the floor, ruined and wheezing against a shattered ribcage. Through his skin, he could feel the cold floor vibrate as men entered the room, talking in low voices that he couldn't hear. He lay motionless until someone grabbed a fistful of his hair and peeled his face away from the floor.

"Soldat?"

The asset gurgled incoherently, blood bubbling from his mouth.

"Ya ne uveren. Potrebovalos' tri popytki yego kontrolirovat." _I am not convinced. It took three attempts to control him. _

"My poprosili yego lishit'sya tseli. Umeret'. Ya vpechatlen, eto ne zanyalo bol'she." _We asked him to forfeit a target. To die. I am impressed it did not take more. _

_ "_My ne prosim. My komanduyem." _We do not ask. We command. _

The soldier finally lost consciousness and his handler dropped his head to the floor, unceremoniously.

"Ubedites', chto kazhdyy, kto nakhoditsya v odnoy komnate s nim, vooruzhen. Yesli yego zhizn' ne nasha, chtoby komandovat', to eto nasha zhizn'." _Ensure that anyone who is in the same room as him is armed. If his life is not ours to command, then it is ours to take. _

"Vozvrashcheniye na rodinu."

He blinked and suddenly found himself squinting against the flaring orange sun as it hovered just above the horizon. He turned away from the blinding light and froze at the sight of the young woman standing a few feet away.

"Do you know me?"

Guilt sliced through him as she asked the question he wished she didn't have to.

"Charlotte."

He saw her breathe a sigh of relief and his guilt deepened.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to spring that on you, but I needed to…reach you."

Bucky took note of the long shadows on the ground and glanced back towards the fading sun. "How long have we been out here?"

"A while. Probably because I couldn't figure out how to say the damn word."

He grinned and found her doing the same. The burning light from the sun ignited the iridescent copper in her hair. A golden glow warmed her face and shadows played in the hollows of her shoulders. Those slender shoulders that had nestled so comfortably against his chest as he had carried her from the floor of his hut to the cot…

He shook his head. "It feels like it's getting worse."

"Because you're getting better." He gave her an odd look. "The electrical patterns in your brain are changing. The more control restored to you, the more memories you regain. But that's almost 80 years' worth of memory to unravel. No one is going to blame you if you're a little...confused."

Bucky huffed, "Thanks." Then, with deepening realization, a thought occurred to him as he watched the sun slowly set on another African day. "I am going to be here a while, aren't I?" Her magnetic eyes, dark and disorienting, held his gaze while she seemed to contemplate her next words.

"I was here for 8 months. Granted, I was relearning how to walk and eat and breathe, but after two or three months I had physically recovered. But I was afraid to leave."

Bucky frowned. "What were you afraid of?"

"Me. All of a sudden I was this volatile energy cannon that was in so much physical agony I considered throwing myself from a cliff on an almost daily basis. I didn't trust myself. I was convinced that if I went back into the world like this, I was going to hurt someone."

The former assassin nodded slowly, remembering her words by the waterfall.

_I'm afraid of hurting you. Of causing pain._

"How'd you overcome it?" he asked, though he already knew the answer. It was also his answer.

She smiled, almost sadly, and Bucky swallowed back the impulse to reach out and touch her.

"I didn't."

* * *

_**A/N: There are not enough Bucky Barnes memes/Stucky references/Sebastian Stan goodness bites on the entire internet to thank all of you who continue to read this story in between my heinously long hiatuses. **_


	14. Bleeding Effect

"Welcome back."

Shuri caught sight of her friend on the landing pad, standing with her face to the sun as the wind tossed around the belted skirt she was wearing. The princess trailed just half a step behind her brother as they marched away from the jet, through the parallel rows of the King's Guard. Charlotte smiled at the princess' casual attire despite the formal greeting on the landing pad. While her brother sported royal black and purple robes, Shuri had opted for a simple silvery dress with gray leggings and white sneakers. Her braids were gathered behind her head in a long ponytail that nearly reached her hips.

As the Wakandan siblings approached their friend, Charlotte crossed her arms in respectful salute of the king.

"It still feels so weird to do that," Charlotte said.

"Why?" T'Challa asked, dropping his crossed arms and quizzically raising an eyebrow. "You did it for my father."

"Yes, but I never saw your father get thrown into a puddle of shit by a rhino."

Shuri burst into laughter and pointed at him. "Oh, I almost forgot about that! You stank for days! Mother made you sleep outside one night!"

"Next time try harder to forget," T'Challa said as he started to walk away from the giggling women.

"That reminds me," Shuri said, dropping her voice so only Charlotte could hear, "I have a video to show you later. Better than the rhino."

"I told you to delete that footage!" T'Challa called back over his shoulder.

"Did you? Whoops."

Charlotte laughed and started to follow Shuri back inside the palace. "How was your trip?"

"Productive. I am glad to be back though."

"Why? Had enough of playing teacher?"

Her face twisted in disgust. "No, I've had enough of eating squid and kimchi. I watched one man eat an octopus that was still alive! Did you know that people die every year in Korea from choking on tentacles that are still squirming? It's disgusting!"

"Oh, what, like fried grubs are any better? Remember when you had me try that worm thing?"

"Yes, and it is better because," Shuri held up a defiant finger, "mopane are cooked and seasoned and you can't die from eating it."

"Really? 'Cause I kind of felt like I was going to." Shuri snickered and Charlotte fought to keep up with her as she turned down a descending hallway. "Where are we going?"

"I need to get something from my lab. How have things been here?"

Charlotte had been dreading this question all day and her short, high-pitched answer betrayed her. "Good."

Shuri gave her friend a long sideways glance. "You liar."

"I am not lying! I helped Ota with his farm while he was away hunting. I've been down to the city to do some souvenir shopping and even went for a few hikes on some of my better days. Things have been fine."

Shuri opened a large glass door and waited for Charlotte to pass through first. "Have you seen much of Barnes?"

"Almost every day."

"And? Does he still seem uncomfortable?"

"Sometimes." Charlotte peered at the glossy black walls around them, illuminated by white, glowing runes that matched an equally bright floor. She had to quell a deep, magnetic line that started to etch into her thoughts. "He has good days and bad days. Like the rest of us."

Shuri gave her a sympathetic grin. Another turn into a different hallway and they eventually emerged into a familiar chamber with a white spiral ramp in the middle. Charlotte lingered in the open space of the lab while Shuri purposefully walked over to a metallic door the height of her waist.

"I want to show you something I started working on in Korea," she said as she rummaged through shelves that were spilling cold mist.

The princess walked back over to Charlotte, carrying two green bottles in her hand. She offered one to Charlotte, who gave her a quizzical look.

"You were working on beer?"

Shuri frowned. "What? No, I'm offering you a beer. Do you want it or not?"

Charlotte took the beer, laughing. "Damn. For a moment there, I got really excited."

Shuri shook her head, grinning. Charlotte followed her over to a pristine white table, where she quickly summoned a holographic display screen. With a few agile flips of her finger, she transferred an image file, then pulled on the image to expand it.

Charlotte nearly spit out her mouthful of beer.

"While we were working on the vibranium in Korea, I had a few ideas for Barnes. It's just a draft of a prototype, but it could be really cool."

The other woman stared wordlessly at the holograph. It was missing a red star and the metal was no longer reflective aluminum, but it was an unmistakable prosthetic arm. Dark, almost black, with coppery angled lines running through the plates. A thickening pit churned in her stomach.

"It's made of vibranium, but we can use imaging panels to disguise it to look like a normal limb. Of course, it will be lighter than his other one, making him faster and more agile. And – get this – I'm working on a biometric programming integration that would allow it to actually learn from him. The first educated source of vibranium!" Shuri caught sight of her friend's face. "What? You look like you've seen a snake."

Charlotte drew a deep breath, giving herself time to choose her words. "It's impressive, as always, but it seems…counterproductive."

"I wasn't planning on giving it to him tomorrow," Shuri scoffed. "It will probably take a few months to get it properly calibrated, but I thought Barnes would eventually like his arm back."

"Shuri, you and I both know that is not just an arm."

"Right, it's a highly advanced prosthetic."

"With weaponized capabilities."

Shuri threw up her hands. "Charlotte, what is your point?"

"My point is I thought we were supposed to be deprogramming him as a soldier, not re-arming him." She smirked despite herself. "No pun intended."

"Charlotte, the arm doesn't make him a soldier." Charlotte blinked as the words soaked in like water on sand. "I'm not going to give him a piece of plastic with some wires and hooks for fingers because it's physically impossible with his anatomy. And yes, I agree, this is a horrible thing to show him right now given where his head is at. But one day he'll need it again. He may even want it again, eh?"

The doe-eyed woman looked lost in space.

_You can't unbuild a soldier. Not completely. _

She shook her head and glanced down at the open mouth of her beer bottle. "I doubt it," she mumbled.

"What?"

"It's not just about fixing him, Shuri. It's about humanizing him."

Shuri stared at her friend long and hard. Bracing herself, Charlotte took a swig of beer. A large swig.

"You've been deprogramming him, haven't you?" Charlotte meandered away from Shuri, who dragged her hands over her face. "For Bast's sake, Charlotte. Why? Why do you have to do the one thing I told you not to? Eh? What the hell happened?"

"Shuri, please don't be mad. Everything's fine. No one got hurt."

"You are both damned lucky. There are a lot of people here who still see Barnes as a threat. If he had injured the wrong person, the council could deny him his asylum here in Wakanda. That's why T'Challa forbid it."

Charlotte's chest went cold. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because you promised me you wouldn't put yourselves in that situation in the first place!"

"That was before I realized that he was struggling just to make it through every minute of every day." As if on cue, the skin on her shoulder rippled in a flash of pain, igniting a sharp point of anger. "It's a horrible feeling."

"Then you should've got Hanta involved. Or me! We could've helped!"

"How?" Charlotte clipped. "There's nothing you could've done from Korea. Most of your team is afraid to go within five feet of Bucky after the incident in the lab. Forgive me for breaching protocol, but this is about more than just your fucking science experiment!"

Charlotte clenched her jaw shut before she could say more and hung her head as she waited for a crippling spasm to pass. Her insides churned, though whether from the pain or from guilt at lashing out, she couldn't tell. Shuri had brought her to Wakanda to help and all Charlotte had managed to do was hospitalize herself and disobey orders. Was it really worth it? Was _he_ worth it?

The pain hit a new high note and Charlotte gripped the tabletop next to her. The holographic screen that showcased the new arm suddenly flared white before it flashed into nothing, while a glass pane somewhere behind her popped as a large crack splintered through its center.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled and brought her head back up, wincing as the red-hot nerves in her neck coiled and screamed.

Shuri said nothing. Her arms were crossed tightly against her chest, her chin angled high as if to deflect Charlotte's words. Standing beneath her stern gaze, Charlotte thought her friend looked impossibly tall. Poised, battle-ready, elegant. Like her brother.

Like a queen.

Suddenly feeling very small, Charlotte turned and left the room, cursing the pain that kept her from making a swifter exit.

The princess kept her eyes drilled into the wall across the room, letting out a frustrated sigh only when Charlotte had gone. A part of her knew that Charlotte's words were hollow and only fueled only by pain, but another part of her didn't want to accept the apology. Shuri hated the pain scapegoat. For Charlotte's first several months in Wakanda, she had allowed Shuri to endlessly test, scan, measure, and collect anything she wanted, but she never figured out the source of her pain or exactly how the mechanisms in her brain had been altered. The scientist in her hated that all of the experimentation in the world couldn't fix her friend. So while Charlotte endured the pain, Shuri weathered the outbursts of anger as a constant reminder of her failure. And she hated that the most.

A soft sound like tinkling ice grabbed her attention. Glancing over at the cracked glass panel, Shuri watched as delicate fingers slowly branched out from the main fracture. The venous offshoots produced their own branches, which fed more lines, each branch becoming thinner and fainter until Shuri realized she was looking at the scored imprint of lightning.

* * *

Shuri wrapped the black shawl tighter around her as she descended the grassy hill toward the bonfire. The night wasn't particularly cold, but she suspected her travels and lack of sleep in the past 28 hours were beginning to catch up to her. Her mind was a beehive and not even several hours of senseless tinkering in her lab was enough to quell her restlessness. Somewhere past the midnight hour, she gave up and decided to stroll the dark, cool palace corridors. That's when she spotted the lone bright light flickering down in the valley, in front of a particular hut.

"Did you decide it was a good time to cook marshmallows?" she asked, earning a half-hearted grin from the former soldier. He was sitting on the sandy ground, wrapped in his red and blue robes and stoking the fire with a long, smooth branch.

"Hello Shuri," he offered plainly. "Did you just get back from Korea?"

"We got back earlier today. I just can't sleep."

"Makes two of us."

Shuri let the fire fill the silence with its hissing and crackling while she did a quick study of Bucky's face. The skin around his eyes looked dark, even in the firelight, and he was definitely due for a shave, but he looked healthy enough otherwise. Shuri silently scolded herself. Of course, he looked healthy – super soldiers were _designed_ to be healthy, no matter what.

"How have you been feeling?" she asked.

He looked up at her through the flames. "Did you talk to Charlotte?"

"Briefly. And yes, I briefly wanted to strangle both of you."  
Bucky stirred the fire, which blazed in response, casting a brighter light onto them both. It was then that Shuri caught sight of a few healing gashes around Bucky's left shoulder, beneath the knotted robes.

"What happened while I was gone?" she asked.

His gaze turned broodingly towards the flickering cathedral of flames. "The confusion was getting worse. I couldn't keep track of who I was, where I was. Charlotte offered help and I eventually took her up on it. Maybe leaving the sequence incomplete for too long messes things up. I don't know."

Shuri blinked. It was an astute observation that she couldn't argue against. At least, not at hour 28 going on 29.

"I'm sorry. I really wasn't trying to make things harder for you. I was just trying to keep everyone safe."

Bucky half-grinned. "I never doubted that for a second."

A few moments passed, both of them staring dazedly into the flames while the nightly African chorus of frogs and insects sang around them.

"The bleeding effect," she murmured. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Bucky look up at her, wordlessly asking. "Your brain stores data in specific places, which is what allows us to differentiate between dreams, reality, and memory. If there's damage to one of these places, or you have an inability to process the data, then the information can "bleed" into the wrong areas."

"Sounds wonderful."

"It sounds worse than it is," Shuri said quickly. "We figured there was a good chance this would be a side effect. Your mind is dealing with a huge influx of information. It will just take time to sort it out."

"Don't suppose you have any idea how long?"

Shuri took a deep breath. "A few months? Give or take a few days."

They both grinned dimly. The princess took another long look at Bucky. She thought of the prosthetic prototype in her lab and imagined it affixed to his empty shoulder. Dark and glinting in the firelight as a metallic shadow, unable to feel the warmth of sunlight or the coolness of a night's breeze.

_It's about humanizing him. _

Shuri shook her head, fondly cursing Charlotte's annoyingly accurate magnetic mother earth intuition. "Did Charlotte say anything to you about when she'd be leaving?"

Bucky's brows furrowed. "Leaving?"

"I guess that answers that question," Shuri huffed.

"But we haven't gone through all the words."

Shuri swore someone threw a rock and it hit her squarely in the back of the head. "What?"

Now Bucky's face thoroughly reflected her own confusion. "We still have two words left. Why is she leaving?"

Shuri started to laugh deliriously. Embarrassed, she dragged her long fingers over her face. "I thought you had finished the deprogramming," she half-giggled, half-groaned, "but I guess Charlotte never actually said that and I just assumed! Well, you know what they say about assuming. It makes an ass out of you and me." Bucky stared blankly at her. "Get it? Because of the way it's spelled? Ass, u, and me."

Bucky shook his head, though more out of pity than reply.

"Ah, maybe that's my cue to go to bed, eh?" She started to step back from the bonfire.  
"So then, she's not leaving?" he insisted, trying to sound casual.

"No. Not yet anyway. I'm sure eventually she'll need to return to the life she put on hold for us. Although sometimes I wonder if she should just stay."

"Why do you say that?"

Shuri thought carefully, realizing her filter was rapidly vanishing with each conscious second. "She cares about you. A lot." She paused. "Maybe that's her bleeding effect."

Bucky went very still, as if doing so could hide the effect of his heart thrashing against his sternum. When he said nothing in response, Shuri restarted back up the hill, wondering if she should've kept her mouth shut instead.

"Try to get some sleep, if you can," she said. "Goodnight, Sergeant Barnes."

"Goodnight, Shuri."


	15. One

Shuri knocked with her free hand. "Charlotte?"

No reply.

She slowly pushed open the door to the bedroom and a fresh breeze of air wafted to greet her. The doors leading out to the balcony were open and pale silk curtains fluttered in the breeze. A tangled mess of sheets were piled on the empty bed. Sitting against the wall with her arms wrapped around a pillow, Charlotte's glassy eyes looked up as Shuri entered the room.

The princess calmly walked over and sat next to her, curling long legs beneath her as gracefully as a crab. Her microbraids hung in long strands with a single bun at the crown of her head.

"You know what's going to kill you?" She spoke nonchalantly as she rummaged through a small metallic case she was carrying. "It's not going to be your seizures, or your pain, or some freak bolt of lightning." Her fingers produced two small beads the size of peas, each of which seemed to be glowing a faint, electric blue.

"It's going to be your stubbornness." She lifted her hand to Charlotte's mouth. "Under your tongue."

Charlotte let her friend slip the lighted globes between her lips. They sat together in patient silence for several moments, until Charlotte finally spoke up,

"What it feels like to chew 5 gum."

They both giggled. Shuri carefully examined her friend's face, pleased with the increasing clarity in her friend's eyes. "Better?"

Charlotte nodded. "What was it?"

"Jell-O shots." Charlotte quirked an eyebrow. "Pain medication. You should've asked for something sooner. There's really no point in suffering."

"It usually gets better on its own."

"Ok, but if 24 hours go by and it doesn't, it's time for help. It's a good thing Riba checked on your room –"

Charlotte waved her words away. "Yeah, I've been meaning to tell you it's nice, but I don't really need housekeeping."  
"Apparently you do! And a baby-sitter. It's like having a toddler around; if it gets too quiet, I have to wonder what you're up to. No, you just lost all of your privileges. My country, my rules. From now on, I'm going to make you wear one of those backpacks with a leash."

The brunette laughed, blowing out strands of hair hanging around her face, before gently grasping Shuri's hand in her own.

"Shuri, I really am sorry for what I said the other night. I didn't mean to get so angry with you."

"I know. I'll send you a bill for the damage in my lab and we'll call it even." She paused. "Actually, when Barnes told me that there was still deprogramming to be done, I felt really relieved. Which made me realize you were right, and then it was my turn to feel shitty."

"I wasn't trying to be right," Charlotte said. "My head just hurt."

Shuri leaned in and pressed her forehead to her friend's. "All good?"  
"All good." Then, as an afterthought, "Uxolo."

"What?" the princess pulled back, confusion marring her grin.

"Russian wasn't challenging enough, so I graduated to Wakandan," Charlotte joked, tossing aside the pillow she had been holding. "The children are teaching Bucky a few words. Bucky teaches me."

"Ah." Shuri stood swiftly and extended her hands down to help her friend to her feet. "Take a day to recover. Then maybe we can finish what we started. I know you probably miss each other."

Charlotte frowned, pissed at the sudden heat rising in her cheeks. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know, you tell me," Shuri started to tease before a smoothly synthesized voice interrupted her.  
"Incoming transmission from Captain Steven Rogers."

Shuri beamed at her friend. "Hey, want to say hi to Captain America?"

An arrow of panic pierced Charlotte's chest as she saw Shuri start to answer the call on her Kimoyo beads.

"No, Shuri, not like this!" she hissed, frantically gesturing at herself in an oversized t-shirt and bare legs. "Take it outside!"

Ever resourceful, Shuri replied, "Fine, I'll just keep it on audio, then."

"I can't talk to him! I don't know what to say!"

"He probably just wants an update on Barnes. Here, just say hi—"

"No, I don't want to talk to him. Don't—Shuri, I swear to God—"

Words dissolved as Charlotte tried to shove a thoroughly amused Shuri towards the door.

"Captain Rogers," Shuri spoke into the air and Charlotte practically leapt out of her skin and across the room in a single bound. "There's somebody I want you to introduce you to."

The pillows flew fast and hard and after Shuri failed to block the third one from hitting her square in the face, she finally left the room, laughing. As she started to walk down the hallway, she unfurled her hand and a river of pixels amassed above her palm into a handsome bust of one bemused Steve Rogers.

"Sounds like they're not interested in being introduced," he said matter-of-factly.

"She's fine" she snickered. "You just caught her off guard. Sometimes I forget you're a bit of a celebrity.

"Yeah, well, unfortunately, people don't seem to forget you when your first job was parading around in tights."

"Right. I'm sure that's it."

* * *

It was another 3 days before Charlotte finally felt well enough to re-emerge into the world. Her headache persisted and while the meds that Shuri gave her stemmed the worst of the pain, it was always there, like a wall of water that was already trickling over the edge of its swollen dam. She hadn't been this sick for this long for several years. Was the vibranium mound messing with her head? Was the exercise of recalibrating Bucky's mind extracting a physical toll? Either way, leaving Wakanda was the only solution, which meant she should finish with Bucky sooner rather than later.

_For both of our sakes_, she told herself as she threw her hair up in a cascading bun. She donned leggings and an oversized earthy-colored poncho that hid the sporadic tremor in her right arm and headed out into the palace.

Charlotte ambled aimlessly for a while. Glancing out the windows, she saw bulbous white clouds building in the distance with large swathes of shadow beneath them. Guards and scientists and politicians flurried past in their colorful robes and uniforms. She could feel the threads of energy weaving throughout the hallways like vast tracks of ribbons streaming in the wind. Seeking out Shuri's current signature was usually easy; it was bright, erratic, and faster than most, but the approaching storms were complicating her compass. As the sky darkened and shadows began to chase away the sunlight in the hallways, Charlotte meandered downstairs to old haunting grounds.

As she descended into the panoramic medical wing, she found Hanta attending to a familiar figure.  
"Hey there." Both men looked up, though Hanta quickly reverted his eyes back to the large syringe in Bucky's arm.  
"Long time no see," Bucky mumbled.

Charlotte gave him an odd look. "You think a few days is a long time? Wait 'till I tell you how old you actually are."

He smiled lazily at her.  
"How are you, Hanta?" Charlotte asked the physician.  
"Doing well, Charlotte, thank you," he said, his richly deep voice seeming to pass through her bones.

"This looks familiar," she murmured, remembering the endless hours she spent with Hanta during her own rehabilitation. She watched as he quickly exchanged a blood-filled vial for an empty one.

"Don't worry," Hanta said, smiling at her comment. "Just routine bloodwork. Are you feeling better?"

"Much," she lied. She walked over to the other side of Bucky and lifted herself onto the metal table to sit next to him. He was wearing gray utility pants and a faded black sleeveless shirt that exposed the metal remnants on his chest and shoulder. Some sort of elastic black cloth covered the amputation site. From there, her eyes were drawn up to his freshly trimmed beard that left just enough shadow in all the right places.

Sensing her eyes on him, Bucky said, "Let me guess. I look tired."

"I was admiring your shave job, actually. It looks good."

"Thanks."

Hanta withdrew the needle and wiped Bucky's arm with a small gauze pad. The bleeding stopped almost instantaneously.

"All finished," he announced. He gathered his samples, gave Bucky a reassuring pat on the back of his shoulder and left.

Neither of them said anything for a few moments and Charlotte absentmindedly swung her dangling legs back and forth. A purple flash filled the room and an ominous grumble of thunder shook the panoramic window. As if on cue, the skies parted and the waterfall ravine quickly vanished behind a thick curtain of gray rain. Charlotte's legs stopped suddenly.  
"Are you afraid of storms?" Bucky asked.

"No."

"Hm…just Captain America, huh?"

"Oh for—did Shuri—?"

"No, Steve did."

Charlotte blinked. "You talked to Steve?"

"Well, since you wouldn't…it's fine, though. I put in a good word for you."

His grin widened and she resisted the urge to shove him off the table.

"Maybe I'm a little intimidated by him, ok?" she argued, fiddling with her shirt. "He's practically a perfect human being and he makes some of us feel…inadequate."

Bucky chuckled. "He's still Steve. Still a punk. Just a bigger one."

Charlotte stared at him with a faint grin, trying to imagine two boys running through Brooklyn on the eve of a world war. Throwing baseballs in the shimmering summer heat and snowballs in the gray, frozen winters. Newspapers floating in the dirty streets with bold print headlines that warned of an impending doom. Even if Steve was still Steve, she could only catch passing glimpses of the other slick-haired, fast-talking, tough-love New Yorker. James Barnes was lost to a bygone era.

"What?" he finally asked.

Charlotte enjoyed his blue eyes a second longer before she playfully answered, "You missed a spot."

She reached up to tap his cheek, but Bucky winced at the motion before she even got close. Razor blades of guilt immediately tore at her insides.

"Sorry," she breathed and jumped down off the table, suddenly eager to put distance between them. She wrapped her arms around herself and strolled over to the window. _You fucking dumbass_, she scolded herself. _Why would you just reach for his face without warning? What part of brainwashed, damaged soldier with PTSD do you not get?! _

She stared out the rainy window and sighed, trying to hide the sound of her frustration. "What do you think? Should we finish this?"

Bucky stayed quiet for so long that Charlotte finally turned to look back at him. His lips twitched before he carefully concealed whatever surfacing emotion she had triggered.

He gave her a shallow grin that never touched his eyes. "Now or never."

* * *

The observation chamber was deathly quiet compared to the driving rain and wind outside. Bucky stood patiently by the window, watching her from beneath dark eyebrows as his one hand clenched and unclenched.

A cold line of sweat trickled behind her ear.  
"_Odin."_

She could feel the channels dilating in response to the word, flooding his system with electrical activity. A single, strong pulse shook through her like a shockwave; his instinct to fight or flee.

"_Odin."_

Bright flares of energy reacted to the signal, but she struggled to focus. Instead, she watched as his eyes fluttered closed and his bottom lip quivered. Charlotte faltered. She didn't want to do this anymore. She didn't want to watch him come undone, again, and hope that at the end there was some fragment of a man that could be salvaged.

"Charlotte? What's wrong?" Shuri's voice summoned Charlotte back from her thoughts.

She inhaled sharply. "_Odin_."

Moving her current was like crawling through tar. She fought her way through to the corrupted cells and began to slowly, barely rewire their patterns. After only a few minutes, she could feel dampness at the back of her head. When her arm began to tremble, she clutched at her pant leg, determined to suppress her own unraveling. She had to do this. She had to finish this.

Several minutes could've been several hours, for all she knew. Sweat was pooling in the small of her back and waves of nausea were bubbling up her throat by the time she finished. She reopened her eyes. Bucky stood quietly with his head bowed. She counted his slow breaths.

On the third count, she quietly said, "_Odin._"

She withdrew herself as his current began to stabilize. The former soldier jerked his head up and ran his eyes across the room, searching for something that wasn't there. A few tears dripped from his eyelashes.

Charlotte ached to comfort him, to tell him it was ok and he was safe, but it was all she could do to remain upright. Her skin was burning. Bucky's wandering gaze came back to her and his wet eyes refocused with concern.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"I'm fine."

"Your vitals say otherwise," Shuri spoke through the communication device on her Kimoyo beads. "Just stay there. I'm on my way."

"I'm fine," Charlotte repeated.

Anger started to tinge Shuri's voice. "No, you're not. We need to—"

Charlotte grabbed the bracelet off her wrist and awkwardly flung it to the other side of the room. An odd sound caught in her throat as she stifled the pain. Bucky started towards her, then stopped when she took a step back.

She swallowed hard. "Come on, Bucky. We're so close."

"It's not a race, Charlotte."

"Whatever it is, I don't want to do it anymore." Then, quietly, as if she were saying a prayer to herself, "I don't know if I can do it anymore."


End file.
